Why Brad Pitt is threatening to sue the paparazzi

last updated 8 January 2015

What happened

Lawyers for Brad Pitt are threatening to sue news outlets if they publish photos of Pitt, his wife Angelina Jolie, and their children hanging out on the grounds of their estate in France. Pitt’s lawyers claim that the photos were taken with “highly powerful telephoto lenses” and that they violate the actor’s privacy rights. (The Smoking Gun)

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Can’t Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie enjoy an afternoon at home with their kids in peace? said the blog Waleg. They “picked France and the French country side because they thought they’d be safe from the paparazzi,” but apparently they’re not.

Pitt might have a good case, said the blog Jossip. France takes “citizen privacy—even for celebs"—very seriously, and makes it a crime to publish pictures without consent. But those rules might only apply to photos “published in France”—pictures “snapped in France and published elsewhere, are generally un-actionable.”

“Like all lawsuits, this one is about the money,” said the blog Times of the Internet. Brad Pitt “knows exclusive pictures of his new babies are worth millions of dollars,” and “the aging actor will do anything to stop leaked photos from ruining his meal ticket.”

The value of the photos poses an interesting question, said Belinda Goldsmith in Reuters Fan Fare blog. Pitt and Jolie have gone “to great lengths to shut the media out” as they’ve “expanded their family.” But “should celebrities have the sole rights to photos of their children or even themselves because they have signed an exclusive deal to sell them to a media outlet?”