There’s a lot of talk lately about Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and politics floating around the Internet. Nothing is coming from credible sources and most of it seems to be just wishful thinking from some people but it made me start thinking about the possibilities.

First there are discussions of people hoping that Brad Pitt will run for mayor of New Orleans. I don’t know if it’s ever going to happen, but I could actually picture that. Many people think it would be a perfect match since Brad has done so much to help the locals who were left stranded after Hurricane Katrina. With his Make It Right project springing up new housing, so many people will have homes again. We also know that Brad loves New Orleans and so does Angelina; they’ve often referred to it as their real home base. The locals have often protected them from reporters looking for information, and although they’re still photographed there, it’s not usually as invasive as other places like New York.

Personally, I can see it, but I don’t think it’s something that he’s looking into. I’ve never heard him say anything that would suggest that he’d like to get into politics, but you never know. He wouldn’t be the first celebrity to do it, though. The only downside of Brad being mayor is that he wouldn’t be able to travel with Angelina when she films as easily. Then again, if she starts phasing out of movies, that may not be a huge deal.

The stories get even more ambitious with Angie though. The latest rumors out there are that Angelina Jolie would like to run for president of the United States. To me, this is even more laughable than the idea of Brad as mayor. She’s certainly very intelligent and cares a great deal about some serious political issues, but she even said in her recent interview with Ann Curry that she doesn’t consider herself to be a political person.

So, as far as we can tell, these stories are obviously not true, but for fun let’s have a discussion: Whether it’s mayor, president, or something in between, what do you think of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie getting into politics at some point in the future? Can you see it?

I think it would be interesting, but the selfish side of me would really miss seeing them in new movies, and I wonder how the media circus would get in the way. I’m not sure how possible it would be unless the constant paparazzi coverage dies down in the next several years.

Pitt Politics - What do you think?

Image: Newscom

Okay PittWatch people. It’s been awhile since we’ve had a good discussion post, let’s open one up now. This idea comes courtesy of a local radio host who was talking about Brad Pitt at the Spike’s Guys Choice Awards over the weekend. The host wondered if people would think that Brad went a bit too far when he roasted Mel Gibson at the ceremony.

For those of you who are still unaware, Brad Pitt made fun of Mel Gibson’s DUI arrest in 2006 - when Mel presented Brad with the award, Brad stepped to the microphone, turned to Mel and said, “Thanks Sugartits!”

“Sugartits” is what Mel Gibson called the female cop who arrested him back then. Here’s a clip:

For the sake of clarity, the host didn’t state himself whether he thought this was crossing a line or not, he just threw it out there. I didn’t listen long enough to see if anyone called in with thoughts, but I wondered what you thought.

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Okay, it’s high time to address something. I generally ignore tabloid stories. Or at least I mostly ignore them. Honestly, I love to stand in line at the store and laugh at the headlines. More than once I’ve seen headlines screaming that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have split up, and I smirk because just the day before I’ve been online posting a ton of photos that show otherwise.

Other than a source of amusement though, I pay little attention to the tabloids - online or in magazine format - beyond the effort that it takes me to roll my eyes. As you can imagine, I’ve been over-working those optic muscles with all the rolling my eyes have been doing lately because you’ve all seen the headlines too.

However, there have been comments left here on PittWatch and emails sent to my inbox that have alerted me to the fact that some fans are alarmed by the stories that are coming out and want reassurance that Brad and Angelina are still together, happily in love.

Here is the absolute, 100% truth: I don’t know. I’m pretty sure that they are but despite my hard work here at PittWatch, I am not directly affiliated with Brad or Angelina. I don’t know them, I don’t know their security, I don’t know anyone in direct contact with them. I’ve been fortunate enough to speak with others who have acted on set or taken their photos, but that’s the extent of my contact. Everything I post as news comes from photo agencies and as many reliable sources as I can get.

Despite that, I can hope to reassure those of you who are panicked at least a little bit. For one thing, all of these “stories” - the ones claiming that Brad and Angelina have split, that they want an open relationship with other lovers, that they’re screaming and carrying on in front of the kids, that Brad has a drinking problem, that Angie is wasting away and collapsing on set, take your pick - are coming from tabloids. Not news sources, tabloids. Even the more major celebrity news sites that write about these stories source back to tabloids.

Here’s the thing about tabloid magazines. They need to make money. They have to sell their hard copies at the newsstands and they have to sell their ads on their websites, and they know very well which names bring in the most money. Naturally, Brad and Angelina are big names that bring in big bucks for them. If the couple is not currently doing anything visible - walking the red carpet at awards shows, attending premieres, or taking the kids out in busy cities that are overloaded with paparazzi - then the tabloids need to get creative with their headlines and their stories. That’s when unnamed “sources” suddenly come out, random family friends who are allegedly desperate to share secret information with so-called reporters, and we start hearing of all the trouble in paradise.

It happens all the time. Long-time PittWatch readers will recall that we go through this at least once a year. Right now Angelina is filming Salt and lately her scenes haven’t been in public places, so we haven’t seen her. Brad is busy gearing up for Inglourious Basterds premiering at Cannes in May. The kids are in an area where they’ve been able to enjoy some privacy. We haven’t seen them all out - or just on a date night - in ages.

And it’s happened before, and when it did, there was the same tabloid uproar with people insisting that Brad and Angelina had broken up. It’s nothing new and it will happen again and again and again.

On top of that, if you go into your local market, you’ll probably see that for every break-up headline there’s another that will claim Brad and Angelina have secretly gotten married, are adopting a child within the month, or are expecting another baby. It’s ridiculous but it sells and it works so it’s not going away any time soon.

So please, take a deep breath folks. Yes, this is Hollywood and Hollywood relationships don’t have the best track records in general and even Brad and Angelina have been divorced themselves. Heck, Mel Gibson and his wife are filing for divorce after almost three decades together. It does happen and our couple is not bullet-proof.

But as long as it’s just tabloids - or news people quoting tabloids - I’m not believing the rumors. Let’s just enjoy the positive stories, hold tight for the photos of Brad and Angelina that we do get from time to time, and in the meantime, we can look forward to Brad on the red carpet in Cannes next month - especially considering that Angelina will join him unless there are serious filming schedule conflicts.

Please feel free to chat this topic up in the comments!

Image: Splash News Online

We all know that it’s coming eventually and a lot of media sources have already started speculating: The next Jolie-Pitt adoption. Both Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have said they aren’t finished with having kids yet and we know that adoption is still very important to them. They’ve also said in the past that they would like to have a physical balance as far as ethnicity is concerned - for example, they adopted Pax from Vietnam to share some Asian heritage and identity with older brother Maddox from Cambodia.

It stands to reason, then, that they would likely adopt another child from Africa as they did when they adopted Zahara from Ethiopia, or perhaps a child with darker skin from South America. Whether it would be a girl or a boy, I don’t know, and I’m not sure if gender necessarily matters to them.

Obviously we have no way of knowing unless either Brad or Angelina talks to the media and says, “We’re adopting a child from [whichever country] next month!” Which, of course, is highly unlikely!

However, it’s fun to guess and we always have such great conversations in the discussion posts, so in light of a slow-down on the news right now, let’s talk about where Brad and Angelina might go to adopt next!

(Please keep in mind that the majority of us are not necessarily aware of all the international adoption laws, so if anyone should mention countries where it would be just about impossible, kindly refrain from attacking - this is just for fun after all!)

I could have seen the rumor about an adoption in India being true until people mentioned how difficult it would be - having read up on the international adoption laws in India now, I realize that even if they wanted to, it would be a near impossibility.

I see them going back to Africa at this point. They might even go back to Ethiopia specifically. It’s very dear to their hearts, and not just because Zahara was born there but also because they have their clinic that they started there to help treat patients with tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS (through the Jolie-Pitt Foundation). I don’t know what other countries are like for adoption laws (recent news about Madonna’s adoption attempt in Malawi springs to mind), but if they don’t have any specific laws, Darfur might be another option for them - Angelina Jolie visited refugees in Darfur through the UNHCR and saw first-hand how in need the country’s people are.

Another question, which is more interesting to me than whether it will be a boy or a girl, is will it be a baby or an older child? Zahara was a baby when she was adopted (though not a newborn), whereas Pax was a bit older. With their current family dynamic - two twin babies, three pre-schoolers, and an older child - I wonder which would work best for them. I can’t even guess!

Like I said before, for all we know, they may have already filed the preliminary work somewhere to prepare for adopting. Angelina had mentioned they wouldn’t start the adoption process until Knox and Vivienne were six months old due to legal reasons, but that deadline has passed now. In some places, adoption can pass fairly swiftly, but in other countries the wait time can be quite lengthy so they may have needed to get started right away. Maybe while we’re guessing the origins of the next Jolie-Pitt child, they’re already half way through the set-up.

What do you think?

(Thanks to joliepittfanatic for suggesting this topic!)

Image used with permission: Newscom

Life has been quiet for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie lately. Well, from our perspective at least. I’m sure that with six kids life is only quiet at 2 am, but it’s been hush hush for fans the past few days with no further New York City sightings of either Angelina on set or Brad with the kids.

However, today I stumbled across a blurb in the Washington Post asking the question: Can women beat out men at the box office?

That’s an interesting question. My knee-jerk reaction is YES, but I wonder. Overall, in Hollywood - like many other industries - men seem to still earn more than women do. Now salary and box office pull aren’t quite the same thing but they do work together. An actor’s salary depends on how well their movies generally do on the box office charts.

Right now, the men in Hollywood probably still have the lead. HOWEVER. When you have someone like Angelina Jolie routinely doing high action movies I don’t think it’s impossible for that to change.. She still does her wonderful Oscar-esque dramas, but Angie is the only actress to be such a high profile action star. When they ran the clip reel at the Oscars this year, showing all the great action hits of the year, Angelina was the only woman in there.

There are some other actresses who have done action roles - Jennifer Garner, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, and Cameron Diaz just off the top of my head, and they do them well - but they’re not in the same class as Angie. Maybe it’s the stunt factor and the fact that she does so many of her own, I don’t know. I just know that men and women alike flock to the theaters when Angelina is in a high-action movie like Tomb Raider or Wanted. I have no doubt that Salt will be just as much of a success and will likely be a great blockbuster film.

I think the reason people see male actors as being the box office winners is because the big blockbusters are often the summer action flicks - and those action movies tend to have males in the lead roles - Will Smith, Hugh Jackman, and the like.

But with Angelina putting one more crazy spy thriller with chases and Spiderman-like building scaling under her belt, I’d say that the men should start making room at the top of the podium because I think there will be a bit of estrogen up there soon.

What do you think?

Image used with permission: Newscom

Reader Carol left a comment in the previous post saying that she felt there was too much over-exposure due to all the photos of Angelina Jolie on the set of Salt lately, and that it was possibly going to make people less eager to actually see the movie if we keep seeing shots. I disagreed and said that for me it’s only making me anticipate the film even more, because the photos of Angelina are so exciting and we don’t really know exactly what’s going on, so it creates an air of mystery for me.

It got me to wondering though - we all have our own opinions and I’d love to hear yours, so I created a new poll:

Please vote in the poll as to whether you think there is too much exposure for Salt right now or whether it’s only making you hungry for more. Then go ahead and expand on that in the comments!

Image used with permission: Newscom

It’s almost laughable to even write about this, but you know what? Naturally the media and the bloggers and possibly people around the water cooler at the office have been talking about this topic - I’ve even had a few people in my offline life ask me about it.

Of course I am referring to how, allegedly, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie snubbed Ryan Seacrest on the red carpet at the Golden Globe Awards. Did they snub him or not? Let’s talk about it. If you actually haven’t had a chance to see it yet, here’s the clip:

Now there are two possibilities:

1. They didn’t intend to snub him. Brad and Angelina were merely in the middle of posing for the cameras when Ryan came barreling down the steps and onto the red carpet - where he technically wasn’t supposed to be, when he bolts at the beginning of the clip you can here the guy behind him telling him to stay up on the stage - and by the time they were done, security clearly steered them along to move on down the red carpet towards the entrance or another interview they had already agreed to do (such as the one with ET).

2. They did indeed snub him because they just didn’t feel like speaking to someone who has spoken negatively about them - Angelina in particular - in the past. The most obvious moment was when Ryan dissed Angie on his radio show after the 2007 Golden Globes. Of course, we later found out that her mother was very ill and dying at the time, and could have had a lot to do with her lack of interaction that year; however, he has, I believe, spoken poorly of her other times.

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While debating discussion thread ideas, one idea that was tossed out more than once was the question of what draws you, as a reader, here to PittWatch. That sounded a bit too much like I was looking for validation, so here’s a spin on it.

What draws you in most to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie? Is it their movies and their acting abilities? The way they look with their modern-day twist on old school Hollywood glamor? The humanitarian work that they always find time for? The amazing way they’ve created a beautifully multi-cultural family? Was it your love of Brad that you became interested in Angelina? Or was it the other way around where you came to appreciate Brad because of Angie?

I made a poll just for fun, and I included the option to decide that you can’t choose just one reason for being drawn to this power couple.

However, since it’s a discussion thread, maybe we can talk about why you find yourself so interested in them.

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It’s been awhile since we’ve had a discussion thread, don’t you think? With the new interviews and articles released since the Changeling premiere, I thought we could talk about something we’ve brought up in comments here and there before - the paparazzi and the kids.

I was particularly struck by two comments that Angelina made which were highlighted on I’m Not Obsessed.

One was when Angelina Jolie mentioned how they find places where they can be a normal family:

“Usually, places where there are other parents with children are okay - other parents are much more respectful of our privacy than many people because they understand what it’s like just to want to be with your kids. Parents are much kinder to us than some other members of the public.”

That makes so much sense to me. I know non-parents could also have respect and understanding about when it is and is not okay to start screaming, “Brad! Angie!” like a crazy person. In line at a premiere by the red carpet? Okay, scream! At a park with a bunch of kids, including the Jolie-Pitt kids? Not okay!

Then there was the quote which I mentioned in a previous post, as to how they explain the paparazzi to the kids anyway. Which is an important detail, but while Brad and Angelina are huge celebrities to us, they’re just Mom and Dad to their kids.

“When the kids ask us why people are taking our pictures, we say, ‘Mommy and Daddy make movies and that’s why some people want to know about us.’ We want to make sure that they know there’s nothing special or different about us - it is just a fact of our lives that we happen to make movies so people want to take our pictures.”

Now, here’s what I want to discuss. Despite their massive fame, it has always seemed to me that Brad and Angelina do everything they can to provide a stable family life for their kids and are doing their best to raise them with respect and love. And yet every time they step out the door with their kids, people in droves have something negative to say.

So why is it that Brad and Angelina get all the negativity but other celebrity parents do not? I almost never hear the same kind of snipes thrown at Jennifer Garner when she’s out with Violet Affleck. Madonna can take Lourdes out with her and that’s not considered a publicity stunt or throwing her daughter to the wolves. People are worried about the Scientology aspect, but beyond that, people are thrilled to see Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise out and about. Gwen Stefani is seen with Kingston Rossdale and that’s just fine, everyone loves that!

Why is everyone else getting a free pass but Brad and Angelina don’t? Discuss!

(It should be noted that no celebrity children can escape people with a lack of class. You should see some of the awful things people write about Violet and Lourdes, physically speaking. It’s mind-blowing how adults can still be just as cruel as kids in school yards.)

Okay folks! Burn After Reading opens in most cities today! Who’s excited? I wish I could see it tonight but probably won’t get to catch it for a couple of weeks. However, I know many of you will be seeing it at some point this weekend - and some of you were lucky enough to catch sneak peeks yesterday! - so let’s get a review post going.

If you see the movie, please leave your comments here. Please, though, be considerate of those who have not seen it yet - no spoilers! Let us know if you loved it, hated it, if it was as good as Fargo,etc.

Awww. Look how happy Brad Pitt is at the thought of you seeing his movie!