The Brad Pitt girlfriend experience
It's Gossip Time!
Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: Brad Pitt tries on a new girlfriend, Hailey Bieber tries to do math, and a YouTube star tries to weather a cheating scandal.
Since Angelina Jolie filed for divorce from Brad Pitt in 2016, Pitt, 58, has “dated” several women. Remember the MIT professor Neri Oxman? Page Six published reams of coverage about Pitt’s non-relationship with her in 2018 until she was like, “actually I’m marrying the hedge fund manager Bill Ackman?” So it went with Charlize Theron, Alia Shawkat, and the Polish model Nicole Poturalski, the last of whom turned out to be married. Every six months or so, sources rush to the tabloids to claim Pitt is secretly dating a new woman, and within a few weeks, that woman makes it clear she wants nothing to do with the guy.
I believe that’s what’s happening with Emily Ratajkowski.
The recently separated model and author, 31, has become Pitt’s latest potential girlfriend, with every tabloid on Earth running thinly-sourced stories about how the two are getting to know each other. (Sound familiar?) According to People, Pitt and EmRata are “spending a lot of time together” but “don’t appear to be ‘dating’ formally.” A source told Us Weekly that the two “like each other and are excited to see where things go.” Life & Style got a slightly more enthusiastic source who claimed that Pitt thinks Ratajkowski is the “hottest thing on the planet” and that “they totally gel.”
To be clear, Pitt and Ratajkowski have never been seen in public together. Ratajkowski is in the midst of a contentious divorce from her alleged cheater of a husband Sebastian Bear-McClard, and Pitt is busy suing his ex-wife Angelina Jolie every chance he gets while managing his new wine-themed skincare line. Can a 58-year-old actor and 31-year-old model make it work under these conditions?
Perhaps not. Sources have already started walking back their claims about a potential relationship: Someone told Page Six yesterday that Pitt and Ratajkowski are keeping their relationship “low key” because of their “divorce drama.”
“Brad has quietly dated the last couple of years. He worries that Jolie will badmouth him to their kids, more than she already has, if he has a serious girlfriend,” a source said. Another source added, “Emily is hot mama, but Brad knows she has a lot of drama involving her divorce.”
Completely normal statements made by real people about a real romantic relationship. I give this news cycle approximately six more days.
The cyberbullying instinct among Selenators and Beliebers kicked in this week after Hailey Bieber, 25, talked about her marriage to Justin Bieber, 28, on Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast. Hailey, who is not known for being a great interview, mostly reiterated that she has been married to Justin for FOUR YEARS, which is a length of time that of course proves all the haters wrong. Except Hailey still has plenty of haters, the vast majority of whom are rabid Selena Gomez fans who think she “stole” Justin from their beloved Disney star. Hailey addressed the “timeline” of her relationship on the podcast, but it’s possible she made it worse.
“I can say, period, point blank, I was never with him when he was in a relationship with anybody — that’s the end of it,” Hailey declared. For reference: Justin and Gomez, 30, got back together in the fall of 2017 and broke up again in March 2018. Justin and Hailey then reunited at a church conference in Miami in June 2018 and quickly got engaged. Gomez’s fans have never gotten over it.
But perhaps peace is brewing: Gomez went live on TikTok yesterday to urge her followers to speak with “kindness” while not mentioning the Biebers specifically. Things will probably calm down now, until Gomez releases her AppleTV documentary about her mental health in November.
Speaking of overlap, TMZ reported this week that SNL star Chris Redd is dating Kenan Thompson’s ex-wife Christina Evangeline. Huh! The TMZ take is that everything is fine, even though Redd and Thompson were close friends and even played brothers on Thompson’s now-canceled sitcom Kenan. TMZ insists that “Christina and Chris became official within the past year, and there was no overlap or cheating when it happened.” Thompson, 44, only filed for divorce in June, and Redd, 37, announced he was leaving SNL last week after he was spotted out with Evangeline, 33.
Us Weekly reports that Evangeline is the “happiest she’s ever been,” which is of course the most important thing. “Her relationship with Chris is great and it’s normal,” a source revealed. Phew.
Someone who for sure cheated is Ned Fulmer, former star of the ex-Buzzfeed YouTube conglomerate “The Try Guys.” I’ll admit I was not familiar with his work prior to this week, but basically his thing is being obsessed with his wife, Ariel Fulmer. The two worked together in the Try Guys content mines and published something called The Date Night Cookbook last year. Well, Ned was fired from the Try Guys this week after it was revealed he had an affair with another woman at the company. His apology statement is one for the ages:
Since Ned became disoriented and fell into an extramarital relationship by accident, he has been getting the celebrity scandal treatment: Paparazzi caught him out running in his neighborhood (he was wearing his wedding ring!), and TMZ filmed him and his wife getting into their Tesla to go pick their kids up at school. Ariel told the videographer that they are “working on working things out.” Best of luck.
STUFF BY HILARY DUFF: Hilary Duff’s birthday was on Wednesday. She’s 35 now! Happy birthday, Hilary.
Finally, I’ll leave you with this photo of Jennifer Aniston and Jon Hamm filming a scene at a carnival for the upcoming season of The Morning Show.
I cannot wait for the return of this horrible program.
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