Now and again, we've all said things we've regretted. Things like "Actually, now you come to mention it, you do look a bit fat in that dress," or "yes officer, I did make those gestures towards you."
But if you're Michael Douglas, the regrettable things you say often happen during interviews with international magazines, which then go on to be reported by every news source in the whole world. We're specifically talking about the GQ interview with Michael Douglas where he suddenly took it upon himself to rant against Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. And Renee Zellweger. And Kenny Chesney. And Julia Roberts. And Lyle Lovett. Now, though, Michael Douglas is saying that he was misquoted by the magazine, and that he loves each and every one of them dearly.
Everyone has their own opinion about the relationship between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. There's Team Aniston, who claim that Angelina Jolie is a wicked witch for stealing Brad from Jennifer; and there's Team Jolie, who just wish that Jennifer Aniston would shut the hell up about Brad Pitt for just one second. We were all pretty much under the impression that 1980's filmstar Michael Douglas was a paid-up member of Team Aniston, after he was quoted in GQ magazine as saying:
"I don't know about Brad Pitt, leaving that beautiful wife to go hold orphans for Angelina. I mean, how long is that going to last?"
While he was on the subject of failed Hollywood marriages, Michael Douglas then went on a verbal rampage, dissing celebrities here there and everywhere:
"I mean, don't ask me what happened with Renee Zellweger. I don't know how you get married for four months. And Julia with Lyle."
But now, Michael Douglas is saying that he isn't in Team Aniston at all. In fact, he's always been quite a fan of Team Jolie. Because Michael Douglas is trying to explain himself by using the old Lindsay Lohan-approved chestnut of claiming you were misquoted. In an interview to promote his new movie on Extra, Michael Douglas went to great lengths to try and save face:
"I did not make that statement. It was a lengthy article. I probably spent more than 20 hours with her with a tape recorder and all of that. I asked her to play back the tape for me and she said that she turned the tape off at that time. I consider him a good friend, and she does wonderful work for the United Nations, which is what I'm also involved in …There's just a lot of pressure on the print media and they get to kind of exploitative quotes to try to attract people for their circulation, so it was unfortunate."
However, GQ doesn't seem to want to back down. After all, it was GQ that made Jennifer Aniston Man Of The Year 2005 , so it will stand by any pro-Aniston comments made by anyone, any that includes Michael Douglas. According to GQ executive editor Andy Ward:
"Our reporter Jeanne Marie Laskas spent many hours over the course of four months with Michael Douglas. His comments about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie – along with many other quotes from that long night at a hotel bar in Washington, none of which he is disputing – are in Jeanne Marie's notebook. We stand behind them 100 percent."
Ahhh, it was a long night hotel bar chat. Why didn't Michael Douglas just come out and say that? We've all stayed up late at hotels, had too much to drink and slagged off our workmates, haven't we? Except us, obviously. We were misquoted.
Read more:
Douglas: I was misquoted on Brad & Angelina – People
[story by Stuart Heritage]
Cultural Snow says
“Our reporter Jeanne Marie Laskas spent many hours over the course of four months with Michael Douglas.”
Poor bloody woman. Now he’s in apology mode, is he going to say sorry for that green velour sweater (V-neck, no shirt) he wore in the disco scene in Basic Instinct?
Or for looking older than his dad?