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AMANDA PLATELL: Ange feels 'pain and despair'. Has she read her own reviews?
Ahead of the release of her movie Maria at the Venice International Film Festival, playing the magnificent yet troubled opera queen Maria Callas, Angelina Jolie says her ‘despair’ and ‘pain’ over her split from husband Brad Pitt helped her channel the tormented diva.
Was that really what made her so unhappy – or had she just read the dismal reviews of her film?
Callas is one of the most amazing women of the last century: a legendary soprano betrayed by her lover Aristotle Onassis, who married Jackie Kennedy without telling her, leaving her in Paris with a broken heart.
Angelina Jolie says her ‘despair’ and ‘pain’ over her split from husband Brad Pitt helped her channel the tormented diva
It hardly compares to the life of Jolie, the nepo-baby daughter of Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight, who has never been betrayed by the more talented Brad.
Jolie said: ‘When you have felt a certain level of despair, of pain … there are only certain sounds that can match that feeling. And to me the immensity of the feeling is encapsulated in opera – there’s nothing like it.’
So says the woman who was a self-avowed punk fan and devotee of The Clash. No wonder film critics sitting through this turkey are asking themselves – should I stay or should I go?
Let’s look at the facts and what ‘pain’ Ange really shares with Maria. Jolie’s box-office appeal never recovered after she stole Brad from his first wife, Hollywood sweetheart Jennifer Aniston.
They lived together for years, raising six children before marrying in 2014, separating two years later – and warring ever since.
Seeing her in Venice, I was reminded me of those leaked emails in 2014, in which a Hollywood producer described Jolie as ‘a minimally talented spoilt brat’.
She should have learnt her lesson then. In the final aria of Puccini’s masterpiece – sung by Callas – Madam Butterfly kills herself with her father’s knife, singing ‘Con onor muore’, which means ‘to die with honour’.
I hope, one day, we will see Ange’s career going the same way.
Is Prince plotting?
Despite Prince Harry insisting that he’s no longer safe in the UK, he ‘secretly’ flies in for the funeral of his uncle Robert Fellowes.
It has separately been confirmed that he will not add any more bile to the paperback edition of his memoir Spare – nor give any more hurtful interviews.
So, was Harry really paying tribute to a beloved uncle – or just trying to worm his way back into the Royal family
My moggie and Yuna? Not purrfect
My moggie Ted is overjoyed that lioness Yuna, three, who was trapped in a tiny concrete bunker in war-torn Ukraine, has been rescued by The Big Cat Sanctuary and now can feel the grass beneath her feet at her forever home in Kent. Ted would like to meet Yuna to chat about how he, too, recovered following his rescue after being badly treated as a kitten. But given his last romance was with a gay tomcat called Rocky, I’m doubting it would be love at first sight.
- Ahead of the launch of the remake of his hit 1988 cult horror Beetlejuice, imaginatively entitled Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, film-maker Tim Burton says he ‘loved’ making it. Alas, some critics did not love watching it. One witheringly declaring: ‘The long-awaited resurrection should have stayed dead.’
Driver’s deadly selfishness
The lawyer for 96-yearold June Mills who killed pedestrian Brenda Joyce, 76, after losing control of her car and mounting the pavement, said Mills was of previous good character. The sad truth is that anyone who gets behind the wheel of a car at 96 is not of good character – they’re just thinking of themselves.
Having failed to turn up for a previous insolvency hearing, Katie Price – who has a tax bill of £760,000 – finally appears in the High Court only for the judge to decree that subjecting her to ‘extreme’ public scrutiny would ‘harm her mental health’, giving her a delay for proceedings to be held in private.
I must try that the next time I can’t pay my tax bill: Sorry, HMRC, after six facelifts and 17 boob jobs, I’m just not mentally well enough to pay you.
BBC DirectorGeneral Tim Davie says he feels ‘let down’ by the Huw Edwards scandal, reassuring staff ‘we hold ourselves to the highest standards’. Davie became DG in 2020 – and in 2022 there were more than 40,000 convictions for TV licence evasion, with 74 per cent women, often older women. Some standards, Auntie.
Meanwhile Alex Williams, 25, who sent Edwards indecent images of children, was given just a 12-month suspended jail term. Some justice that his name and face are on social media, ensuring a lifetime sentence.
- Influencer Molly-Mae Hague has broken her social media silence after kicking out fiancé Tommy Fury over claims he cheated. She says she’s lonely. Does she think her 8million Instagram followers have an appetite for Molly and Tommy: The Reunion
Strictly, Gio wins
Amanda Abbington’s claim that former Strictly pro dancer Giovanni Pernice sent her a ‘sex related’ video clip has delayed the BBC’s internal inquiry into her claims that he gave her PTSD. There’s some justice as the woman whose complaint will harm the Strictly brand is now appearing in a small play in a minor North London theatre. Meanwhile, tickets for Pernice’
- Some fans whine that Oasis are charging too much for their reunion gigs. Stop crying your heart out! They provided a magical soundtrack for many of us in the Nineties. I’d rather pay a few hundred pounds to see Noel and Liam in their 50s than twice that to see the geriatric Rolling Stones giving very little Satisfaction.
Before crashing out in the first round of the US Open, Emma Raducanu deflected questions about Andy Murray’s triple Grand Slam legacy, saying he’s now ‘old news’. Not nice, Emma – and not surprising that, given that you show such poor form on and off the court, your £10million sponsors are asking themselves if
++Westminster wars++
- With Starmer making doomsday claims about the economy, even Guardian commentators are now saying: ‘We have all lost count of the number of black holes he has found in the country’s finances... He sounded like the builder who says you need a complete new roof after you’d called him to clean the gutter.’
- Meanwhile one of his own MPs described ditching the winter fuel ÷ payments for some pensioners as ‘a suicide announcement’, with the Left-wing Mirror newspaper saying it left ‘Labour voters feeling coldly betrayed’.
- And who does Starmer’s proposed outdoors smoking ban hit most? The ‘working people’ he claims to represent. Those on low incomes make up the largest demographic of smokers.