Pitt-Jolie Party Pics Purloined
Mon Jun 26, 8:15 PM ET
Try as they might, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie just can’t seem to stop getting caught on film.
Lawyers for the Mr. and Mrs. Smith costars have been busily mailing out threatening letters to a number of media outlets with regard to a digital memory card containing images of among other things, a “private baby shower,” that was allegedly stolen from the couple.
According to the legal eagles at high-powered law firm Lavely & Singer, the purloined memory card has been offered for sale to various media outlets despite it being “obvious to anyone viewing the stolen photos that they were taken in private, on private property and that they could only have been taken by our clients and/or a family member, who own all right title and interest thereto.” (A copy of the letter can be seen online at TMZ.com.)
As a result, Pitt and Jolie’s attorneys are making it clear that anyone daring to publish said photos will be held “liable for substantial compensatory damages, punitive damages and injunctive relief.”
Even so, at least one photo of the couple, purportedly taken from the memory card, had made its way onto the Internet Monday. In the shot, both Pitt and a very pregnant Jolie have white feather boas wrapped around their heads and big grins plastered on their faces.
The legal missive states that some of the photos also show Jolie and Pitt with Maddox and Zahara at a function in Namibia, where they had a “reasonable expectation of enjoying total privacy.”
Police are reportedly investigating the theft of the images.
It’s just the latest photographic misfortune to befall the Jolie-Pitt clan in recent days, after a paparazzo was arrested last week for trespassing while trying to snap a shot of four-year-old Maddox at his daycare center in Malibu.
In other news of the World’s Most Beautiful Family, Newsweek named patriarch Pitt one of the 15 People Who Make America Great in its latest issue, on newsstands Monday.
Pitt was commended for using his star power to draw attention to Namibia, the African nation where he, Jolie and their kids holed up for weeks while waiting for Shiloh’s birth. Knowing he’d be trailed by the paparazzi anywhere he went, he said he and Jolie chose a destination they knew would benefit from being in the public eye.
“It’s the first time I’ve actually felt like we have some degree of control over it,” Pitt told the magazine. “I can’t describe what an immense relief it is for me.”
The actor also explained his and Jolie’s decision to sell their daughter’s first baby pictures to the highest bidder.
“Knowing that someone was going to hound us for that first photo–and was going to profit immensely for doing it–I just couldn’t live with it,” Pitt said. “We were able to turn that around and collect millions for people who are really going to need it.”
The proceeds from the photos, which People magazine purchased for a reported $4 million, went to African charities selected by the couple.
While Pitt and Jolie have said they have no plans to wed in the immediate future, they are planning to adopt another child, whose sex and country of origin they have yet to determine.
“Whether you have them or adopt them, they’re all blood,” Pitt told Newsweek. “And the funniest people I’ve ever met.”
