Hankies out, everyone, because here comes Hollywood’s latest tragic figure — Sad Dad Brad.

The estranged husband of Angelina Jolie and now semi-detached father to their six children has given his first divorce-era, post-therapy interview to GQ magazine.

While flicking through the glossy pages, poring over Sad Brad’s lachrymose declarations of remorse, I began to think: never mind his emotions because I just . . . I just don’t know if I can take much more of it myself. Sob.

Sob Story: Brad Pitt has six children with estranged wife Angelina Jolie

You see, it’s not that Brad likes smoking pot and drinking too much that caused the end of his marriage. Well, actually it is — but apparently he only spliffs up and boozes on down because he grew up in Missouri where men were men, cowboys were cowboys and no one admitted to having feelings, even if they fell head-first off a bucking bronco or stubbed a toe on the front porch, no siree.

Clearly, this is what his new therapist has told him, along with the updates that he is an ‘emotional retard’ who is ‘running away from his feelings’; a man who ‘won the lottery’ but threw it all away; a fool who chased ‘hollow pursuits’ while self-medicating with ‘pacifiers’ — or cigarettes, as you and I call them.

You have to wonder why this, no doubt lavishly remunerated, counsellor didn’t just say, listen you 53-year-old, multimillionaire, chronically pampered man-baby, why don’t you try growing up? And instead of feeling sorry for yourself, start taking responsibility for yourself?

It has been six months since Angelina kicked him out and, of course, Sad Dad Brad has been using his time wisely.

First, he has stopped drinking, which is excellent news. He has also visited three U.S. national parks, in which he posed for a lavish set of GQ photographs doing tumble tots, crying prettily and literally standing in a swamp because, like, he is standing in a metaphorical swamp of life, geddit?

He was also snapped in a complicated clingy pink silk outfit which made him look like a sad sausage that had escaped its casing.

In many ways, the dramatic developments of recent months — during which Angelina filed for divorce, with Pitt accused of drinking and smoking marijuana too much — don’t quite stack up. Can his behaviour really have come as such a shock?

The GQ issue featuring an interview with Pitt

Pitt’s first wife, Jennifer Aniston, claimed years ago that her then husband would lie on the sofa smoking pot all day. Ms Jolie revealed she had been planning the divorce for months — but hadn’t she noticed his bad habits in the decade they were together before all this happened?

One might think someone with Angelina’s demons would be a little more sympathetic. She has a history of severe substance abuse and was once diagnosed with a personality disorder of her own.

And after all their efforts to make and adopt their rainbow alliance of six children, one might hope these two demi-adults would try harder to be good parents and keep their complicated family unit intact. Apparently not.

Today, Sad Dad Brad is thinner, greyer, haunted-looking and says everything is his fault.

Like other Hollywood sad dads, including Ben Affleck (reportedly slept with the nanny) and Tobey Maguire (hangdog after splitting from his wife), the defence strategy seems to be to present himself as a sorry, repentant fool.

In the meantime, he has consoled himself by taking up sculpture — of course he has — and spends ‘up to 17 hours a day’ trying to find ‘a moment of bliss with the clay’ while listening to ballads. Prince George does much the same thing with Play-Doh.

Is it wrong to imagine that this artistic output consists of giant female statues wearing pointed black hats moulded by Brad’s own trembling hands? Perhaps the word WITCH sprayed on the studio wall in a really artistic way.

Has he started wearing a beret? It can only be a matter of time.

Oh come on. I am not unsympathetic to the breakdown of his marriage but this is all so terribly . . . teenage.

A twice-married father of six, sleeping on a friend’s floor — yeah, right — while amusing himself by growing interesting beards and distracting himself with a blizzard of new hobbies?

Sad Brad also says he gets solace from building a fire every morning and evening.

Most of us had grandparents who did exactly that every cold day of their lives, without getting all noble and lonesome prairie about it.

However, if you are a guy who hasn’t washed a teacup or picked up your own socks since you rose to fame in Thelma & Louise, well, then you might get to thinking this makes you some kind of home-making hero.

You know, therapy really is a wonderful thing.

However, something corrosive has happened to the very concept of psychotherapy these days, elevating it to a position of sacred eminence which cannot ever be criticised.

Therapy is represented as a cure-all for everyone, be you a duchess with complicated feelings following the birth of your second child, a serial axe murderer hungry for victim number 17 or a Hollywood film star who has just been dumped.

Sad Dad Brad’s indulgent psychobabble makes him sound worse, not better. Like a man on the run from himself and his obligations and not someone who understands his dreary role in the painful failure of a marriage.

He can’t be ordinary! Yet he has admitted his faults and is seeking redemption, which makes him an all-American hero once more.

In the process, Sad Dad Brad has revealed a great deal about himself — but Hollywood privacy is only privacy when it is something stars like him want to hide. It does not apply when their reputations are at stake.

In the world of the Hollyweirds, he wants to show his pain for popular gain.

St Angelina, it’s over to you.

Kate's girl takes a trip down nepotism alley

Kate Moss’s half-sister Lottie has become a model and now Kate’s 14-year-old daughter Lila Grace has landed her first campaign, too.

How marvellous for them both to have such impeccable connections!

In Mossy’s in-house posse, the family resemblance is there if you look hard enough. Both her sister and her daughter have the same smooth, even features and that blank-eyed marmoset look that plays so well in the world of beauty.

Braid-y bunch: Kate Moss's daughter Lila Grace has landed her first modelling campaign

Yet does either of them possess the incandescent spark that made Kate one of the world’s highest-earning supermodels? Doubtful. They seem blankly pretty but nothing more.

Mother and daughter have already done a Vogue cover and it’s clear that Lila is a lovely girl. Yet in her first campaign to promote hair braids she looks sulky and alien.

As we cruise once more down Nepotism Alley, one wonders where it can all go from here.

Perhaps Brooklyn Beckham can shoot her next campaign, Gordon Ramsay’s daughter Tilly can do the catering and Princess Beatrice can . . . well, you get the picture.

Pity the McCanns, frozen in unending despair

Madeleine McCann disappeared ten years ago this week.

Who could have imagined that a decade on from the fateful night, police forces from two countries and investigators from around the world would still be no farther forward in discovering what happened to the little girl, who was almost four years old. No one has a clue. Literally.

Gerry and Kate McCann gave a television interview this week.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about them is that they are still together, that their marriage did not crack under the strain.

Kate and Gerry McCann marked the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of their daughter Madeleine on Wednesday

However, while his career as a specialist heart surgeon has flourished, her life in particular has seemed frozen.

She stopped practising as a GP, she had no more children, she subsumed herself in their twins, now aged 12, and the search for her daughter.

You don’t have to look hard to see the effect the tragedy has had. Both of them look hard-fired and brittle — glazed in some kiln of despair.

The level of odium still heaped on them by many members of the public is shocking —and I don’t suppose this week’s Panorama on Wednesday helped.

BBC reporter Richard Bilton revealed that, back in Praia da Luz ten years ago, supporters of the McCanns had asked him to act as a spy regarding the movements of one-time suspect Robert Murat, who was subsequently cleared of any involvement in the disappearance. ‘I declined,’ he said, clearly quite pleased with his own contribution to this sorry tale.

Far worse than this smuggery was his harassing of locals and questioning of former Ocean Club employees — based on absolutely no evidence — including one man who clearly had mental health problems.

‘Did you have anything to do with her disappearance?’ he would cry, waving his boom mic in their direction.

It was utterly shameful.

Don't reward drugs mule with celebrity

Can Channel 5 really be considering Peru drugs mule Michaella McCollum as a contestant in Celebrity Big Brother?

One can see it might be starting to dawn on Michaella that, even though she has reformed, few potential employers will trust her.

'One can see it might be starting to dawn on Michaella that, even though she has reformed, few potential employers will trust her'

And that her real struggle began once her jail sentence was over.

For a TV station to foster the idea that criminality has compensations — and one of them might be celebrity — is surely irresponsible.

The former One Direction member Zayn Malik is worth an estimated £30 million — yet this week he urged his Twitter followers to stump up for his friend’s mum’s medical treatment.

She has stage four cancer everywhere and is convinced expensive treatment in Germany will help her.

However, that is not the issue here. The problem is that if Zayn cares so much, why doesn’t he just give her the £120,000 she needs?

It would be chump change to him, but he asks his schoolgirl fan base to dig into their piggy banks instead. What lazy, ghastly, oily impudence.

But after all those years of beseeching fans to shell out on One Direction songs and merchandising tat on social media, perhaps he just can’t get out of the begging habit.