Close Ad

brad pitt

Why Brad Pitt Let a 105-Year-Old Man Live In His House Free for Years
Celebrities

Why Brad Pitt Let a 105-Year-Old Man Live In His House Free for Years

Coming out of the gate as one of Hollywood’s biggest real estate deals of 2023, Brad Pitt sold his Los Angeles mansion for some $40 million last month. He purchased the 1.9-acre estate from actress Cassandra Peterson, a.k.a the beloved monster movie hostess “Elvira, Mistress of the Dark,” for $1.7 million back in 1994.And according to Peterson, the sprawling estate in the Los Feliz neighborhood of L.A. didn’t serve as the home for only Pitt, but also another resident neighbor: an elderly man who lived in his own home on the property!Brad Pitt Lived in His Los Angeles Estate for 30 YearsJON KOPALOFF/GETTY IMAGESAs Cassandra Peterson explains it, following his purchase of the 6,700 square foot mansion known as Briarcliff Manor, Pitt began to expand the footprint of the estate by purchasing all the homes in the surrounding area as they went went up for sale over the years."I think there were like 22 houses that were contiguous to the edge of the property,” Peterson told People. “And every time they came up, he bought one."RELATED: Struggling Waiter Doesn’t Know How He Will Pay for College – Then a Famous Customer’s Tip Leaves Him SpeechlessOne of those homes belonged to an elderly man, a widower in his early 90s, who was living there on his own. When Pitt finalized the purchase of the property from Peterson, he made a deal that allowed the older gentleman to continue living there without having to pay any rent.He Purchased It from Elvira for $1.7 Million in 1994 Elvira: Mistress of the Dark/NBC Productions"He was very, very kind to the husband. His wife passed away and the husband, John, lived there," explained Peterson. "I know that Brad allowed him to live there without paying anything until he died."But it seems like the arrangement went on a bit longer than Pitt probably imagined it would, as his elderly tenant, in the words of Elvira, "just kept living forever.""I imagine Brad was thinking well, you know, he can live there till he dies, which might be any minute now," she laughed.RELATED: “You Got This”: Kate Winslet Stops Interview to Comfort First-Time Kid JournalistIn time, John the resident did pass away, of course—at the age of 105!It’s encouraging to hear that a towering Hollywood figure like Brad Pitt can consider the situation of a complete stranger and act in such a warm, compassionate and generous fashion. Property records show that Pitt purchased four other surrounding properties over the years and that he could make such a unique and caring arrangement for an elderly widow living in one of them reveals him to be the “mensch” we’ve always imagined him to be!Pitt Allowed an Elderly Widower to Live on the EstateFor her part, back in 1994, Peterson moved to another house in the area after she sold Briarcliff Manor to Pitt (and informed him at the time that the home was haunted—but what else would you expect from a horror movie hostess?) and thus became his neighbor.Over the years, Peterson shared a number of amiable exchanges with the Oscar-winner, and found him to be “always kind and sweet.”One such encounter saw Peterson walking her dogs past Pitt’s garage and noticing him working out in sweatpants and boxing gloves as he prepared for his role in the 1999 movie Fight Club."I remember he goes, 'Hey, how are you?' and I'm like, 'Huh?' I couldn't talk. I was turning red. I felt like I was fainting," she recalled. "He's just so stunningly, stunningly handsome — and nice, to top it off."Pitt Also Starred in Interview with the Vampire in 1994 Interview with the Vampire/Warner Bros.What we find most fascinating with the story is that the woman who is best known as the sexily vampiric Elvira, Mistress of the Dark sold what she describes as a “haunted” house (she claimed to have seen ghosts there on more than one occasion) to Brad Pitt the very same year that he starred in one of his most popular movies, the horror flick Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles. The box office smash finds Pitt portraying the titular interviewee—an immortal bloodsucker who actually starts off as a pretty nice guy.It's almost as if Pitt knew that when purchasing Briarcliff Manor (where he and his ex-wife Angelina Jolie raised their six children) and considering the situation of his elderly estate resident, he realized that one should never underestimate the value of treating those around oneself with kindness and respect.

Brad Pitt is Still Fighting the Ghost of Tyler Durden
Mindset

Brad Pitt is Still Fighting the Ghost of Tyler Durden

Brad Pitt has been the prototypical American movie star for decades now. Whether being picked up on a roadside by Thelma & Louise or playing a sensitive but deadly vampire, he’s always been a force to be reckoned with, a force of great power and sensual energy combined with magnetism.No more was this the case than when Pitt played Tyler Durden, the antagonist of David Fincher's Fight Club. In his most iconic role, Pitt satirically embodied the point where idealized masculinity turns destructive.Despite the movie being a deconstruction of toxic masculinity, both Durden and his portrayed have been held up as the embodiment of an almost cartoonish hyper-masculinity for years since the film's release.Pitt was even recently elected as the face of Boston's much-derided "Straight Pride Parade" -- though Pitt himself was quick to demand that his likeness not be used to represent it.Where Tyler Durden got his power"You're looking at an era in the '90s when masculinity becomes very self-conscious, very reflexive," James McCormack, a cinema studies PhD researcher at the University of Melbourne, said in an interview with Vice. "Until then, there was what a feminist philosopher called 'the view from nowhere'—the belief that men don't have a gendered view. That begins to really dissipate in the 90s... and you get films like Fight Club."Durden was the alpha male, speaking to the traits of those men who see strength in being dominant or tough. But he was also the flip side of a "beta" male, who are often seen as more sensitive, but weaker.The question is, of course, then, which one of these sides of the coin does the real Brad Pitt end up on?What does masculinity even mean?“I grew up with that be-capable, be-strong, don’t-show-weakness thing,” Brad Pitt said in a recent interview with The New York Times.Now that Pitt is a 55-year-old father of 6, he finds himself emulating his dad in a lot of his roles: "He had grown up in extreme hardship and poverty, always dead set on giving me a better life than he had — and he did it. But he came from that stoic ilk.”It was an important lesson that has served Pitt well in developing his life and career, and finding his foundation in the world.“I’m grateful that there was such an emphasis on being capable and doing things on your own with humility, but what’s lacking about that is taking inventory of yourself,” he said. “It’s almost a denial of this other part of you that is weak and goes through self-doubts, even though those are human things we all experience. Certainly, it’s my belief that you can’t really know yourself until you identify and accept those things.”Vulnerability over violenceOpenness is something Pitt has been working on a lot lately, and it’s something that is often seen as weakness as men, and thus a quality that is not easy to come by.It’s easy to see why someone whose private life is already at the center of public interest would want to hold back all he can, but Pitt has chosen to go in a different direction.“The ultimate place for my style of acting, as I understand it, is to get to a place of just absolute truth,” he told the New York Times. “I’ve got to be experiencing something that’s real to me for it to read real to you.”Recovery over ragePitt has been sober for a few years now, and has participated in Alcoholics Anonymous as part of his recovery after “taking things as far” as he could with drinking. His recovery group was composed entirely of men, and Pitt was moved by their vulnerability.“You had all these men sitting around being open and honest in a way I have never heard,” Pitt told the New York Times. “It was this safe space where there was little judgment, and therefore little judgment of yourself.”“It was actually really freeing just to expose the ugly sides of yourself,” he said. “There’s great value in that.”It’s possible for the man who “grew up with that be-capable, be-strong, don’t-show-weakness thing,” to evolve into being a more open, vulnerable, and thoughtful man. Sometimes it takes maturity and growth, but if the cultural symbol of macho-masculinity can do it, can’t everyone else?"The fact is, we all carry pain, grief, and loss. We spend most of our time hiding it, but it’s there, it’s in you,” Pitt said. “So you open up those boxes."The new frontier of manhoodWith his new movie, Ad Astra, Pitt and writer-director James Grey were “really digging at, without labeling it so much, was this definition of masculinity.”The definition of masculinity is nebulous. It has whatever meaning you ascribe to it. For Pitt, it has come to mean an openness to admits faults and willingness to be vulnerable.Brad Pitt has discovered that true strength lies in understanding weakness, and that’s something all of us can learn from.More inspiring celebrities:How Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson’s Feud Started— and How They Ended ItHeath Ledger’s Greatest Gift to the World Wasn’t JokerThe Mistakes That Taught Terry Crews How to Be a Man

How Brad Pitt Focused on Sobriety and Self-Improvement After Split From Angelina Jolie
Self-Development

How Brad Pitt Focused on Sobriety and Self-Improvement After Split From Angelina Jolie

Breakups and Hollywood go together like peanut butter and jelly.In some cases, those breakups shake up the public at large. Take the day we found out Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were splitting. Most people thought of them as a power couple in that special Hollywood club of soulmates like Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russel or Will and Jada.We all remember the shocking news of Child Services and even the FBI being involved into one in-flight incident between Brad Pitt and Maddox Jolie-Pitt. The actor was cleared by both agencies but rumors remained, and Pitt’s visitation rights were restricted. As things spiraled out of control, the 54-year-old removed himself from the public eye.I’ve got my feelings in my fingertips again. I think it’s part of the human condition: You either deny them all your life or you answer them and evolve.-- Brad PittHe continued to quietly work, avoiding public appearances. Pitt also started a rigorous therapy regimen, and committed to sobriety, E!Online reported. Remaining in the Hollywood Hills home he’s owned since 1994, the actor took stock of his unraveled life, only to realize he had done it to himself.Letting go of toxic coping mechanismsOpening up to GQ,he spoke of self-medicating to escape negative feelings: “I can’t remember a day since I got out of college when I wasn’t boozing or had a spliff, or something. Something… And I’m running from feelings,” Pitt said.Although he had given up everything but alcohol when he started his family, he realized his alcohol consumption “just became a problem. I was boozing too much.” And despite the feelings and unresolved issues that caught up with him as he embarked on sobriety, he’s glad to have reached this point.Adopting a healthier approach to love and fatherhoodNow, he focuses on resolving those issues and becoming the father he always wanted to be, and not replicating the role of the father he grew up with. He needed to ditch the tough father figure persona and separate from his unhealthy obsession with the smallest of perceived slights. “I gotta be more for them. I have to show them. And I haven’t been great at it,” he told GQ. Pitt’s long introspection and sobriety is helped along by art therapy, spending lots of time at some friends’ sculpting studio, and pet therapy, with bulldog Jacques providing companionship through his struggles. And also learning about love, even when its hard. Especially when it’s hard. “It means to love without ownership. It means expecting nothing in return,” he says.