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Long before the Jennifer Aniston–Brad Pitt–Angelina Jolie love triangle captured the headlines in 2005, Elizabeth Taylor had her own entanglement with singer Eddie Fisher, who was married to America’s sweetheart, Debbie Reynolds, at the time. It was so sensational that it was dubbed “the affair heard around the world” with the same cast of characters: the bad girl, the All-American girl, and the handsome guy caught in the middle.
Kate Andersen Brower, author of , believes that even though Taylor would go on to have another love triangle with Richard Burton, the Fisher-Reynolds situation was “a sexier thing to focus on for the press.” She notes, “Pitting blonde-haired, blue-eyed Debbie Reynolds against this vixen, Elizabeth Taylor, was a more “interesting” tale for the media while men like Fisher, Burton, and Pitt walked away relatively unscathed.
“I think that she carried a lot of guilt within her about breaking up a marriage, but nobody breaks up a marriage, you know? [The men] are as culpable as she was for what happened there,” she says. “I always feel like it’s the women that get pitted against each other. It was Elizabeth versus Debbie, but no one’s really holding the men accountable at all.”
Just like Reynolds, Aniston “got all of the sympathy,” but Brower thinks that the situation is always more “complex” than how the media portrays these love triangles. “Elizabeth didn’t set out to obviously destroy anyone’s life,” she says while noting that “Debbie was not who people thought she was.” Reynolds played up the fact that she was cheated on and allowed the studios to take “advantage of the situation to make money.” Brower adds, “They pitted these two women against each other so that they could sell tickets to movies and help create this love triangle image.”
It seems that every few decades a love affair takes over the headlines and the tabloids can’t get enough of the story. Brower cautions that what happens behind the scenes is “complicated” and fans should never take the tale at face value. Reynolds eventually forgave Taylor for getting involved with Fisher while they were married. It makes you wonder if Jolie will ever make amends with Aniston, especially since they both have Pitt in their past.
Before you go, click here to see all the celebrity couples who have stayed together after cheating scandals.
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