Brad Pitt Crisis Communications Weekend Edition

Welcome to this special edition of the weekend's Speaking with TJ Walker. I say special because as you may have noted, there's no intro music. There will be no outro music. The audio quality may be a little worse. I'm coming to you from Las Vegas today. I'm out here on assignment giving a speech and conducting a media training workshop. I thought I had all my remote equipment for travel setup and I don't quite have everything I need with my digital audio recorder or software on my Apple, my laptop. So I'm actually recording this directly into my iPhone. So I apologize if the audio quality isn't quite what you're used to. I've been trying to make an improvement in the audio quality or over the last couple of months with various upgrades in microphones and equipment. I didn't want to let too much time go by because there is some breaking news that relates to crisis communications that I know all of you have seen glimpses of. Regardless of your interest in Hollywood tabloid fodder, I'm of course talking about the Angelina Jolie Brad Pitt breakup. The interest here for me is not just the tawdry headlines of it, but really the lessons we can learn from the standpoint of crisis communications as it affects the big business. Because Brad Pitt and the movies he's associated with have generated billions of dollars of revenue. I like to think he's a young man. He's basically the same age I am, 53. I am, I think he's 52, 53. So potentially could still have another quarter century ahead of him, billions of dollars of potential revenue. And now we see allegations of him being a child abuser. Those are the allegations. Those are the headlines. I am not making any presumption of innocence or guilt. I'm not the legal system. But I'm looking at this through the lens of crisis communications as it affects a big business and a big industry. And Brad Pitt Inc. Is in fact a big business. Now, one of our earlier guests on the program just a few weeks ago, Steve Rohr is the publicist for the Oscars and deals with a lot of Hollywood celebrities all the time. That's his world. He told me, he said, D.J. the one thing that you can't bounce back from and as a celebrity is accusations or certainly convictions of anything to do with abusing a child. Now, this was before there had been any hint of any wrongdoing on Brad Pitt's part, but it is a serious career ending challenge for Brad Pitt or any star who's given this accusation. I have no idea if the accusations will be given credence, if they will certainly result in any kind of trial or conviction or indictment or arrest. At this point Brad Pitt appears to be going through the right motion saying he's cooperating, saying that he loves his family, saying he wants to do what's in the best interest of children. But this is something that has destroyed other Hollywood figures careers, certainly destroyed politicians careers. Anthony Weiner is in the midst of this situation as well with his yet another texting scandal, this time involving a 15 year old girl and someone 15 year old is not a young woman, she is a girl, is a child. I don't think Anthony Weiner can recover. I don't even want to talk about him. I think his career is so over and after this latest incident he's going to be poisoned. For even local New York one cable access to have him on as a free guest. I don't think we need to talk about him. Brad Pitt is another issue. No one really knows what goes on in a marriage. No one really knows what goes on in the dissolution of a marriage. Other than the two people involved, I have no idea. I'm not choosing sides. I don't favor one or the other. But if Brad Pitt wants to make movies again and be the premium movie star who can command $20 million plus a movie, he cannot have the perception out there that he has molested children. Again, I have no idea what the facts are, but this is the sort of thing where he's got to be transparent. He's got to put out a compelling story. If he starts saying things like I cannot comment on the advice of counsel, that might keep him out of prison, but it is the absolute death of his career. We'll be monitoring this as unfortunately most of the world and certainly the tabloid press. I hate to seem like I am getting down in the gutter and just wanting to get involved with something for the sheer salaciousness of it. But this is almost by definition the textbook example of a career ending crisis. You can recover cheating on a spouse, infidelity. In fact those very issues were involved in the beginnings of this romance. Because Bradford of course was married to Jennifer Aniston at the time, people forgave. They forgot he was still seen as sort of a nice great guy regardless of the origins of his relationship with Angelina Jolie. But this is not an issue that goes away. It's going to have to be resolved one way or the other. If it just hangs out there in sort of a Woody Allen situation, I think you can kiss Brad Pitt's career goodbye. Woody Allen's a little bit different situation. He has the absolute power of being not only star of movies, but the writer, director, producer, and he has a lot more control. There's fewer ways for people to cut him off. Brad Pitt does not have the reputation. He certainly has not produced and directed 50 movies the way Woody Allen has. So if he wants to continue an active career, he's going to have to put a message out there. Now again, I don't mean to prejudge either way, let's say he is guilty. I think society and Hollywood is going to come down on him very sternly and appropriately and turn him into pariah. What are your thoughts? You can share as always, on the blog, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, wherever you are listening to this program, or if you happen to be watching a video of the audio portion on YouTube, you can comment on YouTube as well. As I mentioned, I'm out here in Las Vegas today having a day long workshop and speech for an education nonprofit. And the reason I'm here, and I stress this with all of my clients, if you're giving a speech or a workshop, doing anything with technology, don't just fly in the morning out. Your plane might be late. You don't want to be late for people. You've got to get I'm going to be in the room tonight doing a technical check because I want to make sure the screens are working correctly, the videos are working correctly, everything is in sync so that nothing comes at a surprise the day of the event. That's always my advice. If you're using technology and that could be just a microphone, get to the room well in advance, preferably a day in advance. The other thing it does, it gets your body used to the place where you are. Different time zone. I live in New York City. New York City area. This is Las Vegas. It's only three hours difference. It's not like when I'm in Bangkok or in Delhi somewhere, but it's still a three hour difference. I still woke up at 3:30am today so it's going to be a little easier for me to speak and have full energy all day tomorrow because I took the time to getting in a couple of days in advance when it's possible. That's always preferable so that you can give your body time to adjust and you can be at peak performance for your speech or your workshop. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me. Tomorrow we have a special edition as well. Back to regular programming on Monday. Thanks so much. See you next time.