Nothing sells like celebrity gossip and no celebrity couple sells like "Brangelina." The appetite for photos and news of the impossibly beautiful Angelina Jolie and her sex symbol partner Brad Pitt appears insatiable, with celebrity tabloids offering an endless stream of cover stories, no matter how flimsy the facts. The stories almost always feature Pitt's ex-wife Jennifer Aniston as a tortured victim, jilted and allegedly wronged by Jolie.

Now a new book with more sensational allegations about the trio, Brangelina Exposed, is due to hit bookstores in America on December 1. The author, Ian Halperin, who recently published another tell-all about singer Michael Jackson, said he went "undercover" to write the expose on Brangelina.

He writes that Jolie (34) launched a "mean-spirited campaign" against her arch rival Aniston; that the actress has indulged in serious drug use; and that she and her partner Brad Pitt are just one year away from splitting.

"It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the two are broken up by Christmas 2010," he writes.

The book also reveals more details about Jolie's "dark past" -- her suicidal tendencies, sexual exploits, erratic behaviour and her "temper like a cobra".

And Halperin also claims that Jolie's camp, including her brother James Haven, planted stories in the media in 2005 claiming that Pitt had left Aniston because she put her career ahead of children. She hoped the story would resonate with women who saw her as a 'man-stealing bitch'.

"Aniston firmly prioritised her career over starting a family, which put her directly at odds with Pitt who ached for kids," writes Halperin.

But sources close to Aniston (40) say that the star did try to get pregnant in the waning period of her marriage and that rumours of her alleged anti-baby tendencies continue to hurt her deeply. "I've never in my life said I didn't want to have children. I did and I do and I will," she told Vanity Fair in September 2005.

Since the beginning of pop culture, people have always been fascinated by glamorous, high-powered couples, said Washington Post gossip columnist Amy Argetsinger. Before Brangelina came Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe.

"Brad and Angelina are today's equivalent of Richard Burton and Liz Taylor -- sexy jet-setters collecting children and charities instead of jewels," said Argetsinger, whose 'Reliable Source' column frequently chronicles Jolie's humanitarian-related visits to the US capital.

"We think we know them because of their on-screen personas, though of course we don't, and that fascination with what lies behind the surface leads to the appetite for more stories about them."

The rising popularity of celebrity blogs and a celebrity obsessed public hungry for any details about their favourite stars, the fascination with the Jolie/Pitt/Aniston love triangle knows no bounds.

The tales are familiar and yet the public never seems to tire of the details: Angie is pregnant; Angie and Brad are adopting again: Angie and Brad are getting married; Angie and Brad are calling it off; Jen and Brad are caught texting; Angie's cracking up; Jen wants Brad back; Brad misses Jen, and on and on.

This week several magazines on American news-stands featured Jolie and Aniston on the cover declaring "exclusive" details about the rivals and their catfight to win Pitt's attentions -- all leaked by alleged Hollywood "insiders": "Mind Games! Angelina and Jen are waging their own spiteful private war -- and Brad is fuelling the fire!" said The Star. "Angelina's Cruel Lies; Why Brad fears she'll cheat -- with a woman" declared US Weekly. "Angelina Collapses! She's down to 104lbs and can't stop losing weight" screamed the National Enquirer.

The editors at these tabloids privately admit they play loosely with the facts as they strive to satisfy their readers' fascination with Jolie and Pitt. "The question is: how can we construct a story around a set of emotions that our readers are going to relate to? It can come from a genuine tip, or a photo. Or it can come out of our ass," an editor of a celebrity publication told The Guardian.

Said to be distressed by tabloid headlines that labelled her a "home-wrecker" in the wake of the Aniston-Pitt divorce, Jolie has been very careful to cultivate her own image: that of a globe-trotting, Oscar-winning humanitarian and parent of six whose good work has called attention to the plight of millions of refugees and victims of war across the world. And despite their professed hatred of the paparazzi, according to Halperin, both Pitt and Jolie have a considerable financial incentive in keeping the "Brangelina" brand alive.

Jolie, who for years has employed no publicist or agent, is reported to be a master at managing the public perception of her relationship and lifestyle with Pitt.

Jolie allegedly arranges her own press interactions and personally oversaw the bidding war for the first pictures of her twins, Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline.

'Sure, they're overexposed -- but most readers are at least vaguely aware that Brad and Angelina are geniuses at controlling their public images," said Argetsinger. "And so they yearn to hear about the behind-closed-doors messiness that you have with any ordinary relationship."

But despite her generous good works and her expanding brood, Jolie has been unable to escape her wild child past when she was portrayed as a distinctly unstable but sexually provocative goddess with a love of vampires and weird tattoos.

The daughter of Hollywood actor Jon Voight, Jolie had a live-in-lover at the age of 14 and once admitted to a teenage fascination with self-mutilation. "You're young, you're crazy, you're in bed, and you've got knives, so shit happens," she once said.

At the 2000 Oscar awards in Los Angeles, Jolie passionately French kissed her brother before a television audience of millions and said she was wildly in love with him. During the wedding of her first marriage to British actor Johnny Lee Miller, Jolie wore rubber trousers with a white shirt on which she had daubed his name in blood.

Married a second time to actor Billy Bob Thornton, Jolie famously wore an amulet with Thornton's blood around her neck and allegedly spent one Christmas with the actor cutting their fingers and writing in blood on the walls above their bed.

But despite her eccentricities and kookiness, Jolie has still managed to captivate an American public eager to lap up the latest weekly scoop about her life. "Jolie is particularly mesmerising because she's the rare actress able to command the lead role in macho, action-driven movies . . . and also because we've followed her personal story arc from brother-kissing wild child to alleged home wrecker to humanitarian earth mother," said Argetsinger.

Both Jolie and Pitt have devoted a huge amount of time and money to charitable work, giving hours of interviews to highlight the causes they have adopted. But the breathless media attention devoted to their private life tends to drown out their philanthropy and even their acting.

The truth of the couple's relationship, their personalities and Aniston's genuine feelings will likely never be known. Instead, the celebrity weeklies have built up a soap opera narrative about the three stars, and there is no sign that the fascination is fading.

One thing is for sure -- Jolie won't be rushing out to buy Halperin's book.

"She won't read it," a source told US Weekly, "and she'll act like it's not happening."

- Caitriona Palmer

Irish Independent