I’m not really buying this, because the story comes from Mike Walker’s column in the National Enquirer, where there’s a celebrity hero story just about every week, but of course I’m not above repeating it.

Brad Pitt was said to be riding his motorcyle when he saw a women in a car getting beat up by her husband. He intervened, stopped the guy from abusing her, and stayed with the battered woman until a relative came to pick her up. That is, at least, according to this too good to be true story, but it’s a nice mental image anyway:

The star had just pulled into a Malibu gas station for a… er, pitt stop when he heard screams and spotted a guy smacking a woman around inside a parked car. Leaping off his bike, Brad yelled: “HEY MAN… what do you think you’re doing?” Ignoring him, El Creep-o rained blows on the sobbing woman - until Brad reached through a window and grabbed his arm! In a fury, the guy roared: “EFF YOU!… She’s my wife, so I can do whatever I want!” Customers who’d come running cheered as Brad yelled: “Hey… you can’t slap a woman!” As he and the bully faced off, the woman suddenly shoved her way out of the car… Wife-Beater peeled rubber and split! The woman, crying hysterically, refused to call cops. She had an ugly bruise on one cheekbone, so gallant Brad ran into the station and brought ice - then stayed with her until a relative she’d phoned picked her up.

[From The National Enquirer print edition, Mike Walker's column, June 25, 2007]

If this is even partially true, wouldn’t it have been picked up by at least the local Malibu news and why is only Mike Walker privy to this information? Still, I like to think of Brad Pitt as the heroic type and am sure he would have saved the woman if he actually witnessed something like this. In fact any of those hotties in Oceans 13 would have done the same thing. They’re all heroes - gorgeous helpful heroes - in the minds of bored housewives like me.