Andy Cohen Is Team Brad
He talks the Brangelina breakup and more on ‘The Bill Simmons Podcast’
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s impending divorce was made public in September, but the drama should continue to play out for months. On the latest Bill Simmons Podcast, Bill brought Watch What Happens: Live host Andy Cohen on to talk about all angles of the Brangelina split — including why he’s Team Brad.
Check out the full podcast here. This transcript has been edited and condensed.
Being Team Brad
Bill Simmons: Don’t you feel like we have to be Team Brad or Team Angelina in this whole thing? I feel like I have to pick sides — as if two of my friends were getting divorced.
Andy Cohen: I feel like there’s no doubt about whose side [to pick] — it’s Brad.
B.S.: Thank you! Everyone at The Ringer made me feel bad, because I’m like, "I’m Team Brad!"
He’s just this dumb stoner. Angelina got him into her fold [and] all of the sudden he’s got six kids and four houses.
The Brad-Angelina Media War
A.C.: And you have to look at [Jolie’s] history of terrorizing. … I had a big scandal recently with Melissa Etheridge, who came on my radio show and started talking about this and started trashing Angelina. Melissa Etheridge [used to be] great friends with Brad and she’s like, "Look at Angelina’s history of taking people away from their friends and then destroying," and all this stuff. And she wound up getting a call from Angelina Jolie’s fixer, who is the real-life Scandal lady, the real-life Olivia Pope.
[She] knew that Melissa then was coming on Watch What Happens: Live that night, and she said, "If you don’t retract your statements about Angelina, we’re going to go after you."
B.S.: What does that even mean?
A.C.: I don’t know, but Melissa Etheridge was all freaked out. And I had run into Melissa Etheridge that day and she goes, "I don’t know what to do." And so that night, before the show, she wrote a song called "The Fixer Blues" and she sang it on Watch What Happens: Live, and it was all about the real story of this fixer calling her.
B.S.: Did people know?
A.C.: Yeah, she explained it all in the story. And I filled in the blanks before and after. And it was kind of amazing. That’s why I love live TV. You don’t know what’s going to happen.
B.S.: Then [with] Brad Pitt, it was like, "Oh, something happened on the airplane." The FBI’s involved. And then four weeks later, it’s like, "Yeah, nothing happened on the airplane."
A.C.: [Jolie] called TMZ and revealed all this [stuff from the airplane].
B.S.: This was a good one in terms of people had their sides that they went to and fed information. Because it seemed like Us Weekly was pro–Brad Pitt. And they were kind of saying what his side of things were.
A.C.: And TMZ was pro-Angelina, yeah.
We Should Have Seen This Coming
B.S.: [Their marriage] was destined to fail. … By the Sea has been on HBO from time to time over the last month and I actually watched 10 minutes and it’s basically [about] this fucked-up married couple. When married couples start making actual movies about married couples in trouble, isn’t that a red flag? And then Brad Pitt’s next movie is [him] married to a German spy?
A.C.: You’re right. It’s bad.
B.S.: Of course he was having marital issues! He knew. I think he was just home at night with this big bong just thinking about his four houses and his six kids, and he’s like, "What did I do? I have six kids." Who has six kids?
A.C.: Right. "I’m from Springfield, Missouri. I got to deal with Maddox now?"
B.S.: He’s like a character actor who’s too handsome to be a character actor so he became a real actor, but really he should have just been a character actor and not had six kids.
This May Be the Top Celebrity Story Ever
B.S.: Aniston, Angelina, and Brad. We’re never going to top it for a celebrity story. I think it’s the peak story that we’ll ever have. It’s the most angry I’ve ever heard my wife and her friends about anything.
A.C.: Right, when [Brad] left.
B.S.: Just everything. And people forget [that] all the women were out on Angelina and then she pulled them all back, because she did some really cool things.
A.C.: Yeah, she became the Audrey Hepburn all of the sudden.
B.S.: Humanitarianism, [she] wrote some great editorials, like all the ways she raised attention for breast cancer, and it seems like a million years ago [that] she was making out with her brother and all that stuff.
Angelina’s and Brad’s Uncertain Futures
A.C.: I don’t know where she goes now.
B.S.: Is she a movie star anymore?
A.C.: That’s the question.
B.S.: Lara Croft, like those type of movies, those are 10 years ago. And Brad Pitt. He really hasn’t [had a big hit] since Moneyball.
He wasn’t very good in Allied, I heard. I hadn’t seen it.
A.C.: I haven’t seen it.
B.S.: Yeah, he looked pretty, like, going through the motions.
Her gimmick in the mid-2000s was, "I am the best-looking woman in the world, and I could steal your husband in five minutes. Don’t leave me in a room alone with your husband. I will take him. And I’m also a good actress." Now, I don’t know what her gimmick is.
A.C.: I don’t either.
B.S.: Her gimmick is I have six kids and I’ve got to fly to my house in New Orleans and then my house in Paris and all that stuff.
A.C.: Now it’s weird.
