Brad Pitt thinks he suffers from face blindness, which could come in handy if you’re ever lucky enough to meet the actor. According to a May 24 report by CNN, Pitt has a hard time remembering people’s faces, so it wouldn’t be too hard to trick him into thinking that he knows you.
Here’s what he told Esquire about the affect that his face blindness, or prosopagnosia, has on people: “So many people hate me because they think I’m disrespecting them. I took one year where I just said, This year, I’m just going to cop to it and say to people, ‘OK, where did we meet?’ But it just got worse. People were more offended. …You get this thing, like, ‘You’re being egotistical. You’re being conceited.’ But it’s a mystery to me, man. I can’t grasp a face, and yet I come from such a design/aesthetic point of view. I am going to get it tested.” Luckily for Brad, Carnegie Mellon University has offered to test him for the disorder.
Surely Brad Pitt never has a problem recognizing the beautiful eyes and famous lips the lovely Angelina Jolie, and of course he couldn’t forget the cherubic faces of his six adorable children — or so you would think. According to CNN, one sufferer of prosopagnosia has a hard time recognizing his own face at times, so it seems possible that Brad could forget the faces of his family members. And when Brad is watching “World War Z” with his family, he’ll be asking himself, “Who is that gorgeous guy running away from that horde of zombies, and why does Angie seem so enamored with him?”
On a more serious note, it has to be difficult not being able to recognize faces in Hollywood. Brad already meets a ton of people because of his profession, which means that he has to try to put a lot of different names with a lot of different faces on a daily basis. And it must be really insulting to other celebs when he doesn’t recognize them. In fact, there’s at least one report of Brad’s failure to recognize a fellow star — back in 2005, he was completely clueless that he was talking to Lindsay Lohan when she tried to chat him up at the “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” premiere. But perhaps he was just too preoccupied with fantasizing about Angelina Jolie’s perfect pout and incredible body to care about the bony, bleach blonde B-lister babbling on about how much she loved him in “Thelma & Louise” (for some reason this seems like it would be one of Lilo’s favorite movies).
And here’s an interesting question: is Brad’s prosopagnosia so bad that he’s failed to recognize Jennifer Aniston? Angie might love that side effect of the disorder.
So the next time you happen to run into Brad Pitt at the grocery store, just keep insisting that you’re the masseuse that’s supposed to pay him a house call. If he’s not quite sure that he should give you his address, gate code, and phone number, just kindly remind him that his silly face blindness is keeping him from recognizing you.
