While we're fairly used to female stars turning the hindsight light inward in order to publicly purge the demons of a failed relationship, fewer and far between are the moments when a man willingly steps up and flays himself for all to savor.

And Pitt didn’t have to do that. All signs pointed to him having built up enough of a pre-split reputation, both among his Hollywood peers and his fans, that even the zero-to-100 breakdown of his marriage to Angelina Jolie and the custody issues that ensued would only be a temporary blip in the court of public opinion.

His warm reception at the Golden Globes, the ovation that even the star himself looked surprised by, was an indicator back in January that no one was buying the idea of Brad-as-villain, as someone who was “terrified” for the truth to come out, as Jolie’s court documents claimed.

Jolie was the first to publicly address their divorce back in February, when she and Pitt were actually far further along on the road to rapprochement than it seemed, but Jolie’s comments had all the hallmarks of a most reluctant return to the spotlight.

Which is entirely understandable, of course. She wanted to talk about her latest directorial effort, the Cambodian-set First They Killed My Father, which son Maddox also worked on with her, and it would have been a glaring omission had she forbid the BBC or ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos from asking about her divorce.

...

But despite his recent anger at Jolie for the initially public airing of their dirty laundry, even if it was confined to the hopelessly vague terms of legalese (“He was furious with her in a way he has never been furious before,” a source told E! News), Pitt noticeably did not take the opportunity with GQ to tell an “it takes two to tango” story.

Or not on the record, anyway.

Yet this could have been that time, Pitt’s version of ex Jennifer Aniston's infamous “sensitivity chip missing” post-split analysis of him.

Instead, Brad willingly took the blame for the implosion of Brangelina, calling the tortuous road he’s traveled since September “self-inflicted.”

Not that anyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop as far as Angelina’s parenting went, the 41-year-old Oscar winner’s devotion to her family never being in doubt for one second since she adopted Maddox in 2002 and rerouted her famously alluring intensity toward motherhood. But this interview could have been a more obstinate denial of wrongdoing on Pitt’s part.

Yet it was quite the opposite. Throwing caution to the wind—and simultaneously capitalizing on 30 years of good will built up in Hollywood—Brad went for it, translating what he’s gleaned from his newfound love of therapy into a painfully self-aware, self-deprecating, oft-poetic (building a fire “makes me feel life”) and at times rambling discourse on a charmed life that veered off course and what he’s doing to right the ship.

The spilling of his guts also makes for a fairly humorous juxtaposition with the accompanying photo shoot (it’s a style magazine, after all), including a pic of Pitt partially buried in the sand wearing a $240 Rick Owens tank top and $790 Bottega Veneta pants.

And we have no doubt that the humor is not lost on Brad Pitt, the guy who grew up surrounded by cornfields in Missouri who became one of the most famous humans on the planet and is now starting over in a way at 53.

- Why Brad Pitt Won the Jolie-Pitt War by Throwing Himself on His Sword, EOnline.com, May 4, 2017.

本文仅代表作者本人观点，与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题，，尊重他人，禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.