Chris Hatcher / PR PhotosWilliam Bradley "Brad" Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor, film producer, and social activist. He became famous during the mid 1990s after starring in several major Hollywood films. Pitt was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe Award, both of which were for his role in the 1995 film
Twelve Monkeys.
Pitt is consistently cited by popular media as one of the most attractive men alive and is regarded as a
Hollywood A-lister. His former marriage to actress Jennifer Aniston and current relationship with actress Angelina Jolie have been widely covered in the world media. He is the father of four children with Jolie, one biological, all of whom have also received media coverage. Since his connection with Jolie, he has become increasingly involved in social issues, both domestically and internationally.
Pitt met
Friends actress Jennifer Aniston in 1998 and married her during an enclosed wedding ceremony in Malibu on July 29, 2000. The couple ensured that the ceremony would be a private affair by hiring hundreds of guards to block any attempts of invasion by the paparazzi; just one wedding picture was released to the media. Not long after the wedding, Pitt sued
Damiani International, the company which had made the wedding ring he gave Aniston, for selling replica "Brad and Jennifer" rings. According to Pitt, the ring was his design and was to be exclusive. Under the settlement reached in January 2002, Pitt would design jewelry for Damiani that Aniston would model in ads, and the company would stop selling the copies.
Though their marriage was, for years, considered the rare Hollywood success, rumors of marital problems began circulating, and the Pitts announced their separation on January 7, 2005. As Pitt's marriage to Aniston drew to a close, he and actress Angelina Jolie were involved in a well-publicized Hollywood scandal in which Jolie was often painted as the "other woman", largely due to their chemistry during the filming of
Mr. & Mrs. Smith. While Jolie and Pitt both denied any claims of adultery, speculations continued to mount throughout 2004 and early 2005. In an interview with Ann Curry in June 2005, Jolie explained, "To be intimate with a married man, when my own father cheated on my mother, is not something I could forgive. 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."
In early 2005, the concept of a "troubled marriage" - and arguably his own - inspired Pitt to cooperate with photographer Steven Klein for a photoshoot entitled "Domestic Bliss" for
W magazine. The spread showed Pitt and Jolie as a 1963 married couple with children. Pitt expressed the desire to tell a darker, truer tale, one that explored the "unidentifiable malaise" that often haunts a seemingly happy couple. "You don't know what's wrong", he remarked, "because the marriage is everything you signed up for." For her part, Aniston later cited the shoot as evidence that Pitt has "a sensitivity chip that's missing."
Aniston filed for divorce on March 25; the divorce was finalized on October 2, 2005.
One month after Aniston filed for divorce, in April 2005, a set of paparazzi photos emerged that seemed to confirm the rumors of a relationship between Pitt and actress Angelina Jolie. The photos, which were reportedly sold for $500,000, showed Pitt, Jolie and her son Maddox at a beach in Kenya. During the summer, the pair were seen together with increasing frequency, and the entertainment media dubbed the couple "Brangelina". Two months later, the highly-anticipated July 2005 issue of
W magazine hit newsstands, featuring Pitt and Jolie posed as a couple.
In July 2005, Pitt accompanied Jolie to Ethiopia, where Jolie adopted her second child, a six-month-old girl named Zahara; later Jolie indicated that she and Pitt made the decision to adopt the child together. In December 2005, it was confirmed that Pitt was seeking to legally adopt Jolie's two children as his; per the legal requirements, classified advertisements in the Los Angeles paper
Daily Commerce announced the name change request. On January 19, 2006, a judge in California approved this request, and the children's legal surnames were formally changed to "Jolie-Pitt".
During a charity trip to Haiti with Wyclef Jean, rumors began to circulate that Jolie was pregnant. On January 11, 2006, Jolie confirmed to
People magazine that she was pregnant with Pitt's child. On May 27, 2006, Jolie gave birth to a daughter, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, at the Cottage Medi-Clinic Hospital in Swakopmund, Namibia. Public interest in the child was immense, as evidenced by an August 2006 survey, in which 41 percent of participating 18-to-24-year-old American adults correctly identified that the couple had named their baby Shiloh.
Pitt and Jolie are not married. In 2006, Pitt said, "Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able.
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