This Week in Gossip #5

Brad Pitt loses his latest lawsuit, awards season has begun, Selena Gomez needs to log off, and Hollywood helps to white-wash Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.

1. Brad Pitt Loses Lawsuit Against French Tax Authorities Over Listed Value of Château Miraval

The French website l'informe reported on November 30 that Brad Pitt lost a long-fought legal battle against the country's tax authorities regarding the true value of his Marseille estate, Château Miraval. In a public decision dated November 24, 2023, the Administrative Court of Appeal of Marseille declared that Pitt had falsely lowered the value of Miraval in order to "minimize possession value."

Miraval has been one of the most contentious parts of Pitt's long drawn out divorce from Angelina Jolie. In a court filing obtained by CNN in July of this year, Jolie’s former investment company Nouvel accused Pitt and “co-conspirators” of attempting to retain control of Château Miraval by “stripping” and “looting” its assets. The documents accuse Pitt of "spending millions on vanity projects, including more than $1 million on swimming pool renovations, building and rebuilding a staircase four times, and spending millions to restore a recording studio." Pitt first filed lawsuit over Jolie's sale of the winery and estate in February 2022. His team claimed it was "unlawful" and have done a lot of work to keep Jolie in court over what many saw as a needless battle. This makes more sense when you see this decision from French tax authorities that declared Pitt fudged the numbers.

If this was happening in America, it would be a huge story. Hell, I'm still kind of shocked this isn't a bigger deal. Plenty of news sites, reputable or otherwise, trawl international publications for juice and happily translate them. It's not as though this one was tough for me to find. I got it from the French courts websites in about 10 minutes. Rich people going out of their way to not pay their taxes is one of those things that we can all agree sucks. But Pitt, as always, remains squeaky clean in the eyes of the American press. Why?

Well, probably for the same reasons we don’t see more reports on what happened on that plane…

Pitt is the client of Matthew Hiltzik, a lawyer and founder of Hiltzik Strategies, one of the most powerful publicity forces in the entertainment world. He was one of the people working overtime behind the scenes to rehabilitate accused wife-beater Johnny Depp. Oh, and he also worked for Harvey Weinstein for several years. Omid Scobie, a former Us Weekly writer turned royal reporter, tweeted in August 2022 that "Pitt's team did a LOT to ensure the likes of People, Us Weekly and others made him look good (and exclude anything that could help Jolie.)"

You certainly see that slimy spin at work with stuff like Us Weekly minimizing the allegations made against Pitt by his own family, as Lainey Gossip reported in 2022. Even in pieces that detailed insider claims that "closed-circuit footage exists of Pitt getting “physical” and causing “damage to the plane itself”", they still positioned themselves as Team Brad. That only happens when you really effing work for it (or pay someone else to.)

Just as this story was breaking, we saw more headlines about an old Instagram post reported to have been the work of Pax Jolie, wherein he called Pitt an asshole who terrified his younger children. This post had been swirling around the internet for a while but picked up steam after Pax’s sister Zahara pledged to a sorority at Spelman and gave her full name as “Zahara Marley Jolie.” No Pitt in sight. Now, Pitt’s got “sources” running to the tabloids to defend him as a Good Father who keeps a dignified silence (I wrote about it in a previous This Week in Gossip.) The deflection is obvious, and it takes a special kind of sleaze to push your own kids into the firing line. As if we needed any further combination that they’re estranged from Pitt.

I don’t expect Pitt’s tax problems to bring him down, although it does explain his sudden desire to start branching into crap like skincare (dude, your face is not a good ad for that.) I am curious to find out just how cash rich this guy really is. Like, how much money does he have on hand that’s not tied up in Miraval? The wine sells pretty decently but that’s not a field you get into for easy money, especially not when you’re running the vineyard yourself. How much of the Miraval funds got poured into what Jolie’s lawyers called vanity projects, and how well are any of them paying off? He’s not Ryan Reynolds in terms of business prowess. Honestly, I question how well he’s doing outside of collecting those movie cheques, which are admittedly pretty big. Certainly big enough for him to pay his taxes, right?

As always, Team Angelina Jolie. F*ck this guy.

2. Oh No, Do We Really Need a George Santos Movie?

(Image via YouTube // CBS.)

George Santos was expelled from Congress last week over multiple highly documented ethics violations and became only the sixth House member in history to be kicked out in this fashion. The political and entertainment media have been united for several months in mocking Santos, who used campaign funds to pay for Sephora and Onlyfans and was seemingly committed to being the most ridiculous man on both sides of the aisle (no mean feat.) His exploits were frequently hilarious, mostly infuriating, and oh-so-easy to rip apart.

So, I shouldn't be surprised that the most prominent figure in every late night talk-show's monologues of 2023 is now going to be the subject of a movie. Honestly, I'm surprised it took this long for an announcement to be made. Mere days after Santos was expelled, HBO Films confirmed that they had optioned the rights to Mark Chiusano’s book, The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos, which was only released on November 28. Frank Rich, the notorious New York Times theatre critic turned Veep executive producer, is on board. Variety describes the film as 'the story of a seemingly minor local race that wound up a battle for the soul of Long Island, and unexpectedly carved the path for the world’s most famous (and now disgraced) congressman. The Gatsby-esque journey of a man from nowhere who exploited the system, waged war on truth and swindled one of the wealthiest districts in the country to achieve his American Dream.'