Angelina Jolie kissed her brother… on television. Leading up to the 2000’s Academy Awards ceremony, where all of this went down, Angelina was in a wild stage of her life. Nowadays, Angelina is known for all of the amazing things she has done for the world as well as her conflict with her ex-husband Brad Pitt. While she had already made a couple of really good movies by 2000, Angelina Jolie was mostly known for wearing a vile of blood around her neck, and, of course, her drug use. In short, kissing her brother, James Haven, on national television totally fell in line with the image she had created for herself.
Thanks to a fascinating article by Bustle, we’ve learned some of the secrets of his insanely memorable Oscars’ moment as well as the impact that it has made. Let’s take a look…
It All Went Down At The Vanity Fair Party
If you remember, Angelina Jolie was nominated for, and ultimately won, an Academy Award for her work as a supporting actor in Girl Interrupted. This is what brought her to the 2000 Oscars. After winning the Oscar, she went to the Vanity Fair Oscars’ Party and landed a big wet kiss right on her brother’s lips… And this moment made HUGE news. And it was built up to by a strange comment in her acceptance speech… She screamed, “I’m so in love with my brother right now”… And that just weirded audience members out.
This put an even bigger spotlight on Angelina when she chose to take her brother, James Haven, as her date to the Vanity Fair Oscars Party.
“It was a moment that people hadn’t seen at the Oscars — a blatantly sexual moment,” E!’s Live From The Red Carpet Host Melissa Rivers said to Bustle. “Here are these two beautiful people who literally looked completely different than anyone in the sea of glam and beauty. [They were] glam and beauty in a completely dark, very sexual way.”
“After the awards, Jolie and Haven celebrated at the storied Vanity Fair Oscar Party,” Ed Driscoll, the co-writer of the 72nd Academy Awards, told Bustle. “It was there that the siblings shared their widely-publicized kiss on the lips. It was covered breathlessly in tabloids like the New York Post, whose headline was, ‘Smoochy Jolie & Bro Too Close For Comfort.’ Saturday Night Live parodied it on ‘Weekend Update,’ with Molly Shannon playing Jolie, Chris Kattan playing Haven, and Rachel Dratch making a surprising cameo.”
Many criticized the publication of the kiss, as well as the photo that Vanity Fair staff photographer Jonathan Becker took of them.
“It was a surprising moment, so yes, lots of people were talking about it,” the former editor-in-chief of Glamour, Bonnie Fuller, said. “But Angelina had a reputation as a rebellious young actress, so I think the kiss was seen in context of her being a bit of a wild child. Apparently, it was a very quick kiss — which you can’t tell by looking at the photo.”
And, as stated earlier, Saturday Night Live couldn’t pass up an opportunity to make fun of it and feature the creepy ‘love child’ of Angelina and James.