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Still, her improving image is in sharp contrast with the bizarre persona she had before her Third World aid efforts began in early 2001. Back then, the star with the fullest, most famous pair of lips since Mick Jagger was known for edgy eccentricity. She got multiple tattoos. She had been in naughty romps with costars. She wore, on a chain around her neck, a tiny vial of blood from her then husband, actor-writer Billy Bob Thornton. She passionately kissed her brother on the lips at the 2000 Academy Awards and spoke publicly of bisexual trysts. "In my early 20s I was fighting with myself," Jolie says. "Now I take that punk in me to Washington, and I fight for something important."
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She was young, she grew up...I can't bash someone who's trying to figure out things and make a difference, especially for children. The means by which she's trying to accomplish is sometimes awkward or goofy, but she is well-intended. At least she's not trouncing around like trollopy Paris Hilton or cokehead Kate.
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But Jolie, in her first one-on-one interview since giving birth, candidly acknowledges her crusade has an extra upside: It diverts movie fans, supermarket tabloids and the media from focusing on more controversial and less attractive elements of her life.
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I read this quote to mean that she is very aware of what swirls around her; I don't read this to be a "confession" that the diverted negative press was her intended outcome so much as it was an indirect one.
I just happen to think there are far easier ways to divert the press from one's tawdry life than tirelessly travelling 'round the world, adopting and having children, exposing oneself to danger and disease, etc. - she's not exactly taking the easy way out.
I'm no psych expert, but as a recovering catholic (lol), I would call what she's doing a certain brand (hers) of "penitence."
