Nearly one year ago, golden celebrity couple Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston formally announced th... Keeping Up With Celeb Pair

In May, US Weekly's issue, "Jen's Revenge," featuring Aniston and Vince Vaughn on the set of "The Break Up," was one of the magazine's best sellers.

In September, an exclusive Aniston interview gave Vanity Fair its top-selling issue ever. And that same month, Oprah Winfrey kicked off her 20th season with an Aniston "one-on-one."

"People were obsessed about your marriage and then the divorce," Oprah told her guest. "I think it's because you represented the picture on the wedding cake . . . and so if this doesn't work out, then (they're) thinking, 'Oh Lord, I'm in trouble.' "

Through it all, no matter how sudden the romance, no matter how disappointing the break up, no matter how unlikely the couple's long-term success, fans devoured the gossip.

Over the past year, circulation at celebrity publications has soared. (US Weekly's readership rose nearly 24 percent to 1.67 million in the first half of 2005, the Washington Post reported.) Paired with TV shows such as "Entertainment Tonight" and "Access Hollywood," the ups and downs of celebrity relationships are now, more than ever, an inescapable part of popular culture.

"We're fascinated with them because our brains have not evolved," she said in a phone interview, explaining that for self-preservation, prehistoric humans viewed recognizable faces as friends and strangers as enemies. "We can't differentiate between who is a friend and who is a nonfriend on television."

And no matter how many times our "friends" let us down -- Renée Zellweger and her country-singer ex-husband Kenny Chesney lasted just four months; Charlie Sheen and a pregnant Denise Richards split up and then got back together -- we continue to believe in the fantasy.

In a recent survey of Press-Enterprise readers at pe.com, more than 50 percent of respondents said celebrity relationships are no different than our own (compared with 44 percent who see them as publicity stunts and less than 5 percent who think they're romantic and glamorous).

"There is nothing to indicate that the divorce rate is higher among Hollywood stars than anywhere else," said Toby Miller, a professor at UC Riverside who runs the film and visual-culture program.

But the media circus has little interest in stable, long-term relationships. The long list of celebrity couples that have made it work, from Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward to Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, get lost in a sea of scandals and heartbreaks.

Even Ashlee Simpson, pop star and sister of Jessica Simpson, recently told The Associated Press she'd prefer her next boyfriend not be an actor or a musician. "If you fall in love with somebody, you fall in love with somebody, but I would really like to not like a celebrity," she was quoted as saying.

Celebrity relationships are so notoriously fragile, oddsmakers take bets on their survival. At BetCRIS.com, odds are posted online for the next announcement from TomKat -- shorthand for the Tom Cruise-Katie Holmes relationship.

"As one of the most highly publicized relationships in Hollywood, people are waiting for the next move between Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes," said BetCRIS.com's CEO Mickey Richardson in a press release. "And the public's eagerness for gossip has grown now that they've announced they're expecting."

Chance they'll announce that the baby will become the head of the Church of Scientology: 999 to 1; chance they'll announce that Cruise is not the father: 999 to 1; chance they'll announce that they're breaking up: 22 to 1.

"I really think Hollywood entertainment is taking us down the wrong path," said Kent Mabey, 67, of Beaumont. Mabey, who has been married for 43 years, said a lasting relationship takes not just passion but a willingness to work things out if there are disagreements.

Andrea Klingensmith, 66, of Banning, is also concerned about the message celebrity couples send to our nation's youth. Kids look at their lives and their beautiful clothes and wonder, "If they can have babies and not be married, why can't I?" she said.

But a 2004 study out of England found otherwise. Researchers at the University of Leicester and Coventry University discovered that many teens, like adults, view celebrities as "pseudo-friends" -- not necessarily role models -- that extend their social network.

"For those people who share their interest with celebrities with other people, that interest reflects a healthy development and interaction with the social world," the study said.

Dhahbi, of the Inland psychotherapy association, said the problem comes when people try to imitate the lives of celebrities and it doesn't work.

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