Star Magazine has a doozy about how former pothead Brad Pitt was caught smoking a joint with Jackass star Steve O. It’s covered in an article about how 44 year-old Pitt must feel old because he’s getting Restalyne injections and working hard as a father to four kids. They suggest that Brad is going through a midlife crisis and that he’s been going out and partying a little to cope. It all sounds catty, like the guy can’t even have a drink with friends without being talked about:

“He still smokes,” another insider tells Star “He sneaks cigs behind Angie’s back.” At the Cannes Film Festival in May, “He stayed outside, smoking and drinking,” says a witness. “He looked stressed, like he was trying to get his fill because he had a limited time to enjoy his cigarettes.”

But cigarettes aren’t the only smokes that Brad has enjoyed. A source tells Star he spotted Brad smoking what looked like a joint with Jackass wild man Steve-O on a hot L.A. afternoon. “I couldn’t believe that someone as famous as Brad Pitt would be smoking openly,” the witness says. “But there he was, lighting up a fattie with Steve-O. I was stunned!”

Angie would have been, too. “She doesn’t think Brad should smoke pot or anything else,” an insider tells Star. “She wishes he’d drop all that. A drink once in a while is OK. But that’s it.”

[From Star Magazine, print edition, January 14, 2007]

Brad Pitt was known to be a heavy pot smoker in the late 90s, so this sounds like it could be true. He certainly looks like he’s been smoking something. Pitt and his much-maligned wife, Angelina Jolie, showed up at the Critics Choice Awards on 1/7/08 in Santa Monica last night and he was sporting a messy goatee, unkempt hair and a few more pounds. He still looks hot, though, and I bet it’s for a role. According to IMDB his film Dirty Tricks, about the Nixon Watergate scandal, is in production. He plays Nixon advisor John Dean, who orchestrated the Watergate cover-up, although Dean looked thin and clean cut in the photos I saw of him.

There was a story this week that Pitt’s hometown of Springfield, Missouri was set to build a museum to the famous actor, but it was based on a joke that Springfield’s public relations person made that was taken out of context. There will be no Brad Pitt museum – for now.

Thanks to PRPhotos for these pictures.