April 19, 2007

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have a message for everyone planning a trip to the grocery store: Try to ignore the ominous headlines beckoning from between the gum and candy in the checkout line.

Seems the sublime squeezes have had enough of tabloid chatter alleging their 2-year-old relationship is on shaky ground, and they've decided to speak out -- via their respective reps -- to assure the worried masses that they're doing just ducky.

So what provoked the Jolie-Pitts?

"Brad's Talking Split!" hollers the front of this week's Life & Style, which alleges the altruistic-minded parents of Maddox, 5, Pax, 3, Zahara, 2, and Shiloh, 11 months, are "at the breaking point" following a "fierce fight" on April 6.

The tab even offers up a fly-on-the-wall recreation of their supposed squabble, quoting Pitt as going for the jugular with that old standby, "You're not the woman I fell in love with!"

Star, meanwhile, opts for an equally subtle approach with its "Trial Separation" cover, which features Brad bellowing, "Shiloh stays with me!"

The mag claims this supposed "separation" is set to take place when Jolie wings to Prague to shoot the thriller "Wanted."

"They have so many serious issues between them, that giving each other this space might allow them to step back, think about what they mean to each other and decide where they want to go in the future," asserts a source.

You'll recall that the Brangelina backlash began heating up with Us Weekly's "Saint or Sinner: Angelina's Twisted Double Life," which appeared shortly after the increasingly sylphlike Oscar winner brought Pax home from Vietnam last month (and cut a deal with People for the first pictures of the tyke).

Last week's Life & Style also went negative with its cover story, "Brad Asks: Why Don't You Love Shiloh?" while the front of the latest In Touch wonders, "Brad and Angelina: Is It Over?"

A few days back, the London Sunday Mail quoted a frustrated Pitt as calling his beleaguered amour "Supergirl" and kvetching about having his "personal life dissected with all the lies" (his rep tells us he never spoke to the paper) before offering its own gloom-and-doom prediction for the impossibly pretty pair.

"Is it the end of Brad and Angelina?" the paper blared. "She wants it all -- babies, fame, and to save the world. But what she definitely doesn't want is marriage. So -- could it be true? Is Angelina getting ready to dump Brad?"

But the rarefied flames, who in recent days have been snapped engaged in suspect activities such as picking up a Baskin-Robbins ice cream cake with Zahara and walking arm-in-arm after dropping Zahara and Pax off at daycare, adamantly deny there's any trouble brewing in their globe-trotting, tot-adopting world.

"There is absolutely no trial separation," Brad's spokeswoman declares to Us Weekly, adding that she refuted the rift rumblings to Life & Style and Star but "they [chose] not to run it."

Not content with just a rebuttal (and apparently unfamiliar with that whole "doth protest too much" thing), the rep then goes into detail about the Jolie-Pitts' upcoming together time.

"As a matter of fact, Brad and the kids are traveling to Prague to be with Angelina while she films her movie," she continues. "Then they are both going to Cannes to promote 'Ocean's Thirteen' and 'A Mighty Heart.' After that, the whole family is going to Los Angeles for the premiere of 'Oceans Thirteen' and then to New York for the premiere of 'A Mighty Heart.'"

Chimes in Angelina's more succinct manager, "They are together and very happy."

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