Gaunt Brad Taking Strain

The star is spending his time holed up in an art studio as his divorce looms.

- Nicola Whitfield

THE year is 1991 and the movie Thelma & Louise bursts onto movie theatre screens in all its gender-affirming glory. Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis are the runaway stars – but there’s a cameo by a certain young actor that makes everybody sit up and take notice too. He’s a young drifter in jeans and cowboy boots, flashing a come-hither look and a killer grin that Thelma is powerless to resist. Unfortunately he’s a bit of a rogue too though and he robs her and Louise blind before vanishing – but it’s enough of a performance to put the young actor on the map.

Not only does sex appeal ooze from his pores, he can act too and he’s soon being offered jobs left, right and centre. He is, of course, Brad Pitt and three years later People magazine names him the sexiest man in the world – as they do again in 2000.

But zoom ahead 17 years and one of the most gorgeous guys in global entertainment is a mere shadow of the lad for whom Thelma threw caution to the wind. Gaunt and on the verge of being a recluse, the 53-year-old star is taking serious strain as the months grind on and his divorce from Angelina Jolie looms.

Just a few months ago Brad was being hailed as looking better than ever as, crisp of jaw and taut of tum, he stepped out in a fetching camel coat in the rain in Los Angeles (YOU, 9 February).

But what a difference a handful of weeks makes. In the latest pictures Brad is practically unrecognisable as the A-list Hollywood heartbreaker. He’s lost a lot of weight, hardly goes anywhere without sunglasses and seldom smiles.