im tean aniston too, r u?
I'm Team Aniston and proud of it
WHEN the news I have been dreading was finally confirmed - Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have a little Brangelina in the oven - I was livid. Not because it ended any notion that I would become the mother of Brad's children - I do have some grip on reality - but because I'm Team Aniston and it confirmed every suspicion I had about the reasons behind the demise of what was once Hollywood's hottest marriage.
While I may be thousands of miles and a few rungs short on the celebrity ladder from ever meeting any of those involved in this silver screen threesome, I can't help but feel involved.
Certainly if I lived in LA I'd proudly be wearing the T-shirts and baseball caps bearing the slogan Team Aniston - while burning those imprinted Team Jolie - but as it is, I and many of my friends regularly speculate (with venom) about tattoo-covered, Third World baby-adopting home-wreckers luring away happily married men.
So, when my colleague informed me that the "Mr and Mrs Smith" were to become Mummy and Daddy, I instantly e-mailed my girlfriends to break the news.
"Oh my God, poor Jennifer," e-mailed back Lindsay.
"I've just made the announcement to the office and we're stopping for coffee to discuss this," responded a shocked Siobhan.
"What a !" screamed Charlotte in capital letters. And the usually timid Laura's response was too angry to print.
Now Jennifer Aniston will never become part of our George Street pinot grigio-swigging group, but she is our girl. She's not contrived - there are no UN missions, no leather-clad biker gear, no wish for a rainbow family. There's just a sweet down-to-earth girl who can laugh at herself, who fell in love and got hurt. She's like every female out there, really. It could have been one of us.
But why, I hear you ask, get so agitated about it all? Well there's just something about The Celebrity Thing that affects us all, drawing us in and getting us to shell out £2 for OK! magazine to check out Christina Aguilera's wedding snaps or to find out what's going on with Sienna and Jude. I just seem to have been affected for longer than most.
My obsession with the celebrity phenomenon started when I was still at Comiston Primary School and we all adored Scott and Charlene from Neighbours. Lunch-times were spent not playing British bulldogs or hide and seek, but gushing over the Aussie love affair. Kylie was my idol.
When she left Neighbours and embarked upon her singing career I followed her every move, copying her clothes at the Kylie concession in Mackays in Cameron Toll and curling my hair to emulate her perm for the school disco. At nine, it wasn't her music that I loved but what she stood for: a nice, bubbly and beautiful girl with a fantastic life and lots of friends. We should all be so lucky.
Then came Britney Spears. Older and wiser, I knew about Celebrity Branding and had long ago accepted that I'd been suckered by Kylie. But still, Britney fascinated me. Seemingly God-fearing, innocent and virginal yet all the time posing provocatively on lads' mag covers and gyrating like a lap dancer - and she dated Justin Timberlake. She was a truly engrossing celebrity to follow.
Then Posh and Becks became my new idols. The perfect couple who were madly in love, it was a Mills and Boons story acted out for our - well, my - behalf. When I learned about Beckham's philandering I was gutted, although I still followed the saga with verve; dissecting stories and rumours with anyone who'd listen.
My hopes then were firmly pinned on Jen and Brad - only to be dashed again.
And, while there will be some people out there who think I'm a little strange, I bet anything there are an awful lot - probably female - who are as equally wrapped up in the celebrity world as me.
Why? Because celebrities are fascinating. They live in a parallel universe beyond our reach with glamorous lifestyles we can only dream of. Their A-list party-packed lives make ours seem dull, and their salaries make our pay cheques look like spare change.
Yet they have the same problems - failed marriages, infidelity, poor upbringings, bad career decisions - that we can all relate to. They may appear flawless in magazine shoots yet the paparazzi catch them with greasy locks and a big fat spot and we're thrilled. And though their lives seem irritatingly perfect, reveal a cheating partner and we're devastated for them.
So, when the news about Brad and Angelina having their first child together was announced, my friends and I cursed the smitten couple and wished Jennifer the best of luck. Because underneath it all she's an ordinary person who will shed tears, down a few glasses of wine and make a voodoo doll of her ex just like the rest of us.
Discuss work, family or our own relationships? Why, when there's so much more to celebrities'?