It’s a Brangelina Christmas — in New Orleans
Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie plan to spend the holidays in the Big Easy
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Brad Pitt's holiday in New Orleans Dec. 10: The actor talks more with TODAY's Ann Curry about his Make It Right project, his hope for the city and how he, Angelina and the kids are celebrating Christmas in the Big Easy. Today show |
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Christmas is a time to spend at home with family, and that’s where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will spend the holidays — at home in New Orleans.
“People are really good to our family here,” Pitt told TODAY’s Ann Curry during a one-on-one interview in New Orleans that aired on Monday. “It's been a nice place for myself and the kids and Angie, and, yeah, we hope to maintain a connection here.”
“Angie” is his partner, actress Angelina Jolie, with whom he bought a home in the French Quarter early this year. The couple has four children, including three adopted.
“Christmas here?” Curry asked.
“Yeah, we are,” said Pitt.
Last week, the actor/activist revealed plans to build 150 affordable and eco-friendly in the city’s devastated Lower Ninth Ward through his new foundation, “Make It Right.”
The initiative is his second in New Orleans. The first, in conjunction with Global Green, an international organization that promotes eco-friendly development, was announced in August on the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which leveled huge sections of the city.
More than two years after the disaster, the city’s population is only 60 percent what it was before Katrina, and Pitt says he’s motivated by those who remain homeless, particularly those who lived in the poorest parts of the city.
“We're going into the third holiday season and these people are still sitting in limbo,” he told Curry in explaining his goals for the city. “Success will be seeing a community here thrive again and seeing a barbecue and seeing people hang out on the front porch and making music and kids riding bikes through the streets.”
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Curry observed that many people ask why he is helping people rebuild in areas that are substantially below sea level. The answer, said Pitt, is Robert Green, a Lower Ninth Ward resident who lost a granddaughter and his mother in the flood and has been living in a FEMA trailer for more than two years, waiting for promised rebuilding help that has yet to come.
Green has little left from his home. He talked about what it was like watching his granddaughter, who was 3, fall of the roof of their home into the floodwaters.
“She looked up expecting me to reach my hand down in the water and pull her out and I wasn't able to do that,” Green told Curry.
The next day, his mother, Joyce, a retired veteran of the Air Force, also died.
And still, the place is home to Green, the only home he’s ever known. And he’s going to own one of the new homes Pitt is helping to build through Make it Right.
“I picked this one right here,” he said, indicating the location.,“because of the open areas, and it has the ability to accommodate my kids and my grand kids.”
New digs in French Quarter
Pitt first fell in love with The Big Easy in 1994 when he was filming “Interview with the Vampire” there. Earlier this year, he and Angelina Jolie purchased a home in the French Quarter while he was filming “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” and they’ve made the city their home.
Pitt, 43, has been as famous for his love life as for his acting career. A perennial on various lists of the most handsome men in America, he’s a good friend of George Clooney and appeared with Clooney and Matt Damon in “Ocean’s Eleven” and its sequels, “Ocean’s Twelve” and “Ocean’s Thirteen.”
His first mainstream role was in the 1991 hit, “Thelma & Louise.” In following years he starred in “A River Runs Through It,” “True Romance,” “Interview with the Vampire,” “Twelve Monkeys,” “Meet Joe Black,” “Being John Malkovich,” “Fight Club,” and “Troy.”
More about Pitt's New Orleans initiative |
He married actress Jennifer Aniston after a two-year courtship in 2000, then sparked tabloid headlines five years later when he was photographed with actress Angelina Jolie, a romance that was sparked by the pair working together in “Mr.& Mrs. Smith.”
After divorcing Aniston, Pitt and Jolie moved in together. They have one natural daughter, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, born on May 27, 2006, and four adopted children, Maddox Chivan, pax Thien and Zahara Marley.
Since becoming involved with Jolie, Pitt has become increasingly involved in social issues both in third-world nations and in the United States.
More on Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie |
He’s doing more than lip service to his vow to help rebuild the city’s poorest and most devastated areas. He’s worked on the construction sites and he’s putting his money where his mouth is. Both Pitt and Leo S. Bing, a philanthropist, real estate developer, movie producer and Liz Hurley's former husband have each pledged to match $5 million in donations.
“It's the most unique city that we have in the States,” he told “The Times-Picayune” newspaper in May. “It has an energy like no other place. . . I absolutely love it there. We moved our family there.”
And now, they’re planning on making New Orleans home for the holidays.
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