10 things I hate about Angelina Jolie

1. The collective amnesia: You may be the UN’s goodwill ambassador now — but you used to be a self-harming, blood-vial wearing misanthrope, a fact everyone conveniently overlooks. Or maybe I’m the only one who remembers how you locked lips with your brother at the Oscars.

2. The mother-earth reincarnation: Like a phoenix from the flames, you emerged from the ashes of your former marriages in the guise of a kindly matriarch. As you began expanding your brood with alarming speed and determination, every formerly independent, successful, childless woman was plunged into a spiral of self-doubt. We still haven’t recovered.

3. The perfect babies: Shiloh’s perfect pout and blonde hair will cement her presence on Page Six for the rest of her life. If that wasn’t enough, even the babies you didn’t give birth to are adorable.

4. The perfect post-baby body: Your ability to squeeze into skinny jeans weeks after giving birth to twins is perhaps even more unsettling than your ability to be a multi-tasking supermom.

5. Brad Pitt: We don’t hate you because you have him. We hate you because you stole him.

6. Jennifer Aniston: See above.

7. The donation to Pakistan’s flood victims that outstripped the generous contributions made by our own political leadership. Shame and self-doubt have now spread from the female population to the entire  country. Even though, to be fair, it isn’ t hard to appear more  magnanimous than a Pakistani politician.

8. The money: Even though you give to charity, you have enough cash left over to own homes all over the world.

9. Gia: We’d love to write you off as an undeserving bimbo who earns the big bucks by starring in shallow blockbusters like Tomb Raider and Salt. But after watching films like Gia, we can’t.

10.  Good old-fashioned envy: Because even though we love to hate you, we want to be you.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19^th, 2010.