My obsession with ageing rock stars
'The older male rock star isn't just my specialist subject, it's my obsession,' admits Kate Mossman in the opening pages of Men of a Certain Age. Over the 15 years she's spent interviewing ageing rockers such as Sting, Tom Jones, Ray Davies, Glen Campbell and Nick Cave for the Word and the New Statesman, she describes feeling 'something inside of me ignite… so excited, yet so at ease'. 'How is it,' she asks, 'that in the presence of a wrinkly rock star twice my age, I sometimes feel like I'm meeting… me?'
Having encountered my share of these guys myself, I know precisely what she means. Rock journalism is a field in which all the writers are fans, but, as Mossman notes, 'part of the art is pretending not to be'. Consequently, she bookends each of the 19 insightful and often funny interviews republished here with personal memoirish introductions and afterwords, making the book as much about fandom as about rock stars. I relished her honest analysis of the yearning for connection that interviewers feel when they meet artists who've set their hearts ablaze by the music they made – and sometimes the poses they struck– in their youth. As professional journalists, we're sitting with their older, sometimes wiser, incarnations and asking them to explain themselves and make sense of their impact on us.
It's often weird. My blushing 13-year- old self was somewhere in the mix while I was chatting with A-Ha's Morten Harket, utterly bewildered by the fact that the 45-year-old me was bonding with the 1980s pin-up over a shared love of houseplants.
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Sign up for the Entertainment newsletter Sign up 6 Angelina got close to Brad on screen and off while filming 2005 movie Mr & Mrs Smith Credit: Alamy 6 Angelina at film festival in Santa Barbara, California earlier this year Credit: Getty 6 Brad's long-awaited Oscar came in 2020 for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood Credit: Getty But 20 years ago she met Brad Pitt as they co-starred in comedy-thriller movie Mr & Mrs Smith — and something changed. The couple instantly formed a relationship which looked from the outside like it was increasingly stable and full of love. Brad took on Angelina's adopted baby son from Cambodia, Maddox, now 23, and together they added to their 'rainbow family' by adopting Zahara, now 20, from Ethiopia in 2006, and Pax, now 21, from Vietnam in 2007. They later added biological kids Shiloh, now 19, and twins Knox and Vivienne, now 16, to their brood. And they spent 12 happy years together as the world swooned over two of the best-looking people in the world falling for each other like the love stories Hollywood is famous for. But as with so many blockbusters, young love turned to bitter hatred and Angelina filed for divorce in September 2016 — citing 'irreconcilable differences'. Now, all these years since the 2005 movie that birthed 'Brangelina', there is little sign of that attention-loving anarchy which defined Angelina's early showbiz life. And certainly no sign of the wild love life she once enjoyed — in fact, the beautiful A-Lister seems so resolutely single that pals are wondering, has marrying the sexiest man in showbiz ultimately turned her off men altogether? Priority is the kids While Brad has bounced back bigger than ever — living with girlfriend Inés de Ramón and garnering a slew of acting awards — Angelina seems to have become something of a recluse. 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Speaking exclusively to the Sun, sources tell us Angelina's scars still remain, and are unlikely to ever heal. 'Ange still has difficulty trusting,' says an insider close to the mum of six. 'I don't know if she'll ever fully get over the trauma of her divorce.' Despite being together for years, it was not until 2014 that Brangelina married, at their French vineyard-estate Château Miraval. She wore a veil emblazoned with doodles by their six children. 'It does feel different,' she told Vanity Fair shortly after. 'It feels nice to be husband and wife.' Yet two years later, the dream was over — its collapse sparked by a now-infamous bust-up on a private jet. Within a week of that, Angelina had filed for divorce, alleging in court papers that Brad, in a series of drunken rages, had attacked her and 'choked one of the children and struck another in the face'. 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As for the kids, four of the six are now legally adults so no longer qualify for custody — but have evidently distanced themselves from Brad entirely. It is believed Maddox has not spoken to him for years — while last year an old Instagram post by Pax resurfaced, in which he called his dad a 'world-class asshole'. Zahara and Shiloh are also said to have ceased contact with Brad, as they both now go by the surname Jolie — Shiloh even filed legal documents to make it official. At this point, only Vivienne and Knox are believed to have any contact with their father. But while Brad has seemingly lost the most from the Brangelina divorce, he looks to have had the biggest bounce-back. Just look at where he stands today — at the age of 61, with the world still at his feet. Despite all the drama and acrimony around his collapsed marriage, his reputation seems untarnished. I guess I'm in transition as a person. I feel a bit down these days. 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That has been clear enough whenever she has walked the red carpet in recent years, always flanked by at least one of her children. Still, it's her priority as a mother that has also kept her undercover - and stuck in a city she hates. Last year, she complained that she was forced to stay in LA, where Brad is based, while her twins were still underage. 6 Brad with girlfriend Inés de Ramón Credit: Rex 6 Angelina was snubbed by the Oscars for her role in Maria, as opera singer Maria Callas 'I am here because I have to be here from a divorce,' she told The Hollywood Reporter. 'But as soon as they're 18, I'll be able to leave. When you have a big family, you want them to have privacy, peace, safety.' Snubbed by Oscars The subtext is that she neither feels privacy, nor peace, nor safety in her current surroundings. As for her acting career, she's tentatively dipped her toes back in - but the actress has failed to match the blockbuster success she had in the nineties and noughties. There's a reason Angelina is still single, and it's not for a lack of men lining up to date her A source We're told her performance as opera singer Maria Callas in last year's Maria was supposed to be her big comeback, but while she earned a Golden Globe nomination, she was snubbed by the Oscars. And rubbing salt into wounds, Brad's career continues to go from strength to strength. In 2020, he won his long-awaited Oscar for his role in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - proving that Hollywood held no grudges towards him amid his and Angelina's war of words. He's since seen box office success with Bullet Train, while early critics who have seen his new movie F1 say it's the 'perfect summer blockbuster' - adding that Brad is back on top. The optics are that - while Angelina is stuck, Brad is soaring. And the same rules apply when it comes to romance. For his part, Brad is now happily shacked up with jewellery designer Ines de Ramon, 34, and the pair live together in his Los Angeles mansion. Meanwhile, Angelina hasn't dated anyone publicly since splitting from Brad. Ange is not in the same place as Brad since the divorce, even though she is over him. She's focused on her children, finding peace and keeping her life private. Source close to Angelina As our source explains, she's prioritised her kids and career over romance. That doesn't mean she's not over Brad - it just means that, having been burned before, she's unwilling to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire. 'Ange is not in the same place as Brad since the divorce, even though she is over him,' they said. 'She's focused on her children, finding peace and keeping her life private.' Another insider recently weighed in, 'There's a reason Angelina is still single, and it's not for a lack of men lining up to date her. "Fact is, she keeps them all at a distance because she's so terrified of getting hurt again the way she did with Brad.' Needless to say, this year is a pivotal one for Brangelina. It's now been 20 years since they went head to head as lovers-slash-enemies in Mr & Mrs Smith - before reality dramatically imitated art. Now, the divorce is final, the Brangelina era is over, and it's time for both to move on. Brad may be several steps ahead of his ex, but - with another movie, Couture, in the pipeline, as well as a successful clothing brand, Atelier Jolie - there's every hope that Angelina will reclaim her place in the limelight. For the moment, it seems she's biding her time and counting down the days until her twins turn 18, and she can make some big changes in life - including leaving LA. In the meantime, we're told she's happy surrounding herself with a 'very small circle of trusted friends' and keeping any dating options on the back burner. That former wild child may have baulked at the lack of her headline-grabbing antics, but the bottom line is Ange will always choose peace. Once a hellraiser, she then went through hell. And as the trauma subsides, she's licking her wounds and biding her time. And rubbishing any idea that she needs a man to make things better.
