Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio back in their car on the set of 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood'

I agreed with many of the commenters who speculated that the bizarre story about Brad Pitt and Charlize Theron sounded like it came from his camp. Soon after Angelina filed for divorce, Brad hired several crisis managers and PR professionals, and I feel like we’ve been seeing his team’s handiwork over the past two years. They use The Sun and Page Six to start rumors and bash Angelina, and they use People and Us Weekly to soften his image. And they use The Blast and TMZ too. To be fair, since Angelina hired Samantha Bley Dejean as her divorce lawyer, there’s been so much less leaking from either side. So it makes sense that Brad wants to start a new gossip chapter and that Charlize is the way to do it. Unfortunately, I’m calling shenanigans. About 12 hours after the Sun broke the Charlize-Brad story, Page Six broke this story about Make It Right NOLA:

Brad Pitt is caught in a hurricane of litigation over defective houses his Make It Right foundation built in New Orleans and he can’t find a graceful exit from the storm. Make It Right appears to be barely functioning. The charity reportedly stopped building new houses in 2016. Its website hasn’t been updated since December 2015, and social-media accounts went idle in mid-2017. Like most nonprofit orgs, Make It Right has publicly posted its tax filings and financial statements for several years, but the last available filing is for the 2014 tax year. Years ago, the charity partnered with other groups to build veterans housing in Newark, New Jersey, and affordable apartments in Kansas City, Missouri.

New Orleans homeowners are suing Pitt and the foundation, claiming fraud over defective designs and shoddy construction. Pitt and other former foundation officers are petitioning to be removed from that suit, and he and the organization are suing the architect who oversaw the project in the city’s devastated Lower Ninth Ward. The charity has made repairs to rotting and collapsed porches.

In December, the city of New Orleans warned the 109 Make It Right homeowners that natural-gas meters in their houses might be improperly installed — a dangerous condition that could lead to gas leaks and explosions. For Pitt — an architectural buff who hoped to pioneer new designs for affordable, green housing — the venture has been an embarrassing disaster.

“The easy thing for him would have been to walk away, but then he would be accused of abandoning the people he promised to help,” my source said.

Pitt — after buying a mansion in the French Quarter and raising millions for the foundation after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — was busy making movies. He let other people run the project, which aimed to build 150 green-energy houses.

“Brad was a co-founder, but he wasn’t on the board for years,” the source said. “When the problems arose, he committed to help make it right.”

Ron Austin, the lawyer representing the homeowners, told me, “According to their 2015 tax filings, the foundation is insolvent. If Mr. Pitt succeeds in getting himself removed from the lawsuit, these residents will be without any remedy. It’s obvious he is trying to cut and run.” Austin said his clients are stuck with 30-year mortgages. “It’s sad and scary. They don’t have anywhere to go, and they can’t afford to move.” Emails and phone calls to the foundation were not answered.

[From Page Six]

How does this not look horrible for Brad on like ten different levels? I get that he wasn’t there for the day-to-day running of the foundation, but he LITERALLY started the foundation and he took all the credit and became the face of Make It Right NOLA. He was on the Today Show giving interviews about it and on the cover of Architectural Digest to promote it and hosting fundraisers and all of that. And now it turns out that he basically became an absentee slum lord – he threw up some shoddy houses, trapped lower-income people into 30-year mortgages and then walked away when he got bored and moved on to the next thing. Yeah, I can see why he would prefer to talk about Charlize.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio back in their car on the set of 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood'
Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio back in their car on the set of 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood'
Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio back in their car on the set of 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood'