There can be no more telling sign that two exes are in a good place than if their former best friends have moved on from the break up. A woman’s best friend will undoubtedly be their biggest cheerleader in any split, with an ex partner who has wronged them, frankly, being enemy number one til the end of time – or until they are told otherwise.

Which is where Courteney Cox and Brad Pitt come in, for the two have gone viral this week for posing together happily at a charity event in Malibu – 23 years after Pitt made his appearance on Friends and, more importantly, almost twenty years since Pitt split from Cox’s best friend Jennifer Aniston.

There can be few Hollywood splits more acrimonious than the infamously sour parting of ways between Pitt and Aniston in 2005. At that time there were rumours of foul play, with mounting tabloid suggestion that Pitt had fallen for his Mr and Mrs Smith co-star Angelina Jolie. Both have always strenuously denied their relationship started as an affair. ‘To be intimate with a married man, when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive,’ Jolie said. ‘I could not look at myself in the morning if I did that. I wouldn’t be attracted to a man who would cheat on his wife.’

 For Aniston’s part, she gave a candid interview to Vanity Fair, saying ‘I’m not interested in taking public potshots. It’s not my concern anymore. What happened to him after the separation—it’s his life now. I’ve made a conscious effort not to add to the toxicity of this situation. I haven’t retaliated. I don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t have a halo that I’m polishing here; everyone has their personal thoughts. But I would much rather everyone move on. I am not defined by this relationship. I am not defined by the part they’re making me play in the triangle. It’s maddening to me…’

It has undoubtedly taken Pitt and Aniston a very long time, but by all accounts they are on pretty good terms these days. It was at the SAG awards in 2019 that they were photographed together for the first time since their split, Aniston proudly touching Pitt’s chest following his win for his role in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. At the time, our hearts melted seeing the former golden couple looking so intimate after so many years of their being pitted against one another.

Of course there was one big difference when this meeting took place, namely that Pitt was no longer in a relationship with Jolie, something that sources have said – unsurprisingly – helped the pair back to a more civil place, and led them to rediscover what they had really liked about one another in the first place, platonically speaking of course.

Cox is said to have ‘followed Jen’s lead’ when it came to welcoming Pitt back into her life – something she is now happy to have done as they were always said to have got on well during his marriage to Aniston. They are said to have ‘wrapped their arms around one another’ at the Rock4EB fundraising event, to aid finding a cure for the rare skin condition epidermolysis bullosa, on Saturday, September 21

Cox and Pitt’s public reunion is the first time they’ve been photographed together for over 20 years, but it’s thought they have been back on good terms for some time. Indeed Pitt attended Aniston’s 50th birthday party in 2019, which Cox also attended. And Aniston has spoken about her journey to becoming ‘buddies’ with Pitt. After they reunited for a pretty flirty Zoom-based table-read of ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’ during the pandemic, Aniston was quick to shoot down any suggestion that they were anything more than friends. ‘It was absolutely fun. Brad and I are buddies, we’re friends,’ she told Howard Stern. ‘And we speak, and there’s no oddness at all, except for everyone that probably watched it and was wanting there to be, or assumed there to be.’

Pitt is now said to be dedicated to his girlfriend of two years, Ines de Ramon, who was his plus one for the Malibu fundraiser. But his renewed friendship with old friend Cox is no doubt a reassurance for both he and Aniston. After all, there is no wrath like the wrath of a best friend with a grudge…