• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, September 22, 2016

It doesn’t matter if you are literally living under a rock somewhere (and if you are, I’m sorry for your troubles). There’s no way for anyone  not to know that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are getting a divorce. Neolithic tribes in the Amazon were alerted by smoke signal; goat-herders in rural Mongolia heard about it from the wind; and the pygmies of Central Africa knew about it before we did -- don’t ask how.

Undoubtedly the most important news event of the century and possibly millennium, the Brangelina split is obviously a boon to celebrity weeklies and gossip magazines, which have followed the super-couple with breathless boosterism for years, and now get to dissect the sort-of-shocking denouement for at least the rest of 2016.

People magazine isn’t wasting any time. In fact, Time Inc.’s flagship celebrity title is planning to print an extra issue this week just to cover the Brangelina bombshell, since the magazine’s regular issue for the week was already printed and on the way to newsstands when the news broke, according to CNNMoney (the regular issue features former pro-football player and talk show host Michael Strahan discussing his drama with Kelly Ripa, which is great and all -- but obviously not Brangelina).

The special issue, which features the Brangelina split on the cover -- duh -- but also features coverage of other topics, began production on Wednesday and should be available on newsstands Friday. People’s coverage includes reports that Pitt is being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department for alleged child abuse following a verbal and physical incident aboard the couple’s private plane.

CNNMoney noted that some of People’s biggest competitors were also stymied by the timing of the divorce announcement (which may have been strategically timed by the couple’s publicists in a probably futile attempt to avoid a feeding frenzy). For example, Us Weekly went to production Monday with Bethenny Frankel on the cover discussing her own divorce.