Brad Pitt’s Make It Right NOLA foundation is being sued by dozens of homeowners. Many of the homes built by MIR were and are defective, from bad construction, to shoddy materials, to water damage and more. All of the people who lived in MIR homes had to purchase them, often at a discount, but through loans and FEMA grants and such. They had to spend their own money on these “charity” homes. And so when their homes became unliveable, they went to MIR for help. MIR barely helped at all. So the homeowners filed a class action lawsuit against Brad and Make It Right. Only now Brad Pitt wants the judge to say that he (Pitt) had nothing to do with MIR. “Make It Right? I don’t know her.”
Brad Pitt is defending himself against accusations he only helped out New Orleans residents following Hurricane Katrina for good press, denying the claim and demanding a judge let him out of the class action lawsuit filed by Katrina victims. According to court documents obtained by The Blast, Pitt is seeking to be dismissed once and for all from the class action lawsuit against the actor and his Make it Right Foundation accusing the charity of selling them “defectively and improperly constructed homes.”
Pitt claims the lawsuit “does not otherwise contain a single factual allegation that Mr. Pitt made any promise to any putative class member, that he entered any contract with any putative class member, or that he made any misrepresentation to any putative class member. ” The actor is responding to a recent motion by the victims who claimed that “Mr. Pitt gladly accepted responsibility for his personal participation when the publicity was favorable … [He] received incalculable marketing and publicity benefits from his involvement with the Foundation and the Lower Ninth Ward… But when it surfaced that these homeowners, who are burned with 30-year mortgages on homes that may not last another five years, defendant seeks to be dismissed from legal scrutiny by conveniently ignoring his personal participation and plaintiffs’ allegations of fraud.”
The plaintiffs claim Pitt “personally participated in the tortious and fraudulent acts and omissions alleged in Plaintiffs’ Petition. He promised he would build quality, sustainable, green, safe and healthy homes designed to withstand hurricane force winds, promises upon which the homeowners detrimentally relied.”
In his newly filed court docs, Pitt says, “While plaintiffs attempt to allege a myriad of purported wrongful conduct, they do not supply any specific facts indicating that Mr. Pitt was personally involved in any of them.” Pitt argues, “While plaintiffs urge in the Opposition that certain generic and innocuous statements Mr. Pitt allegedly made to the press somehow give rise to claims against him individually, this is simply unsupportable.”
I can’t wait for the plaintiffs to offer up all of the proof that Brad was super-eager to take credit for MIR and all of the MIR work – he was on the cover of Architectural Digest, he did multiple TV interviews, he headlined fundraisers, and on and on. Make It Right was used as proof that Brad was just as charitable/serious as Angelina Jolie. And then he lost interest, and discarded those people like a child discards a toy they no longer want to play with. Is Brad’s argument really that he wasn’t super-involved in MIR and that he never made ANY promises about what MIR would do?
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
Of course he does.
This is a great example of how different Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were from the very beginning. I don’t think he ever really had any interest in helping others. He just did it to impress her. They were such a bad fit from the beginning. Now that they’re not together he has no interest in it doesn’t want to be blamed for it Added to that however is the fact that many celebrities don’t do things in the states because they can get sued and people get upset if they don’t end up the way they want them. In developing countries the people they help have nothing to fall back on if things fall apart. I think that a lot of the things celebrities do another countries frequently is not done well but nobody cares and they just get good press for it.
this is so apt
Very good observations and so true.
how do we know? pls show your work – one true story about a celeb doing shoddy work in a developing country
He’s a dilettante.
He loses interest in things very quickly, whether it be seeing MIR through or raising his children.
This is why he smeared Angelina and the children yet again last week.
He always smears them whenever something bad about him gets released.
That was exactly what he did… but i am glad shes acting above it all. it must hurt him really bad that with all of the smearing he still cant get a reaction from her. How can you go from loving someone so much to totally hating the person to the extent of smearing her badly in the press.
For me it’s more that he is smearing the poor children especially Maddox & Pax.
That’s beyond disgusting…
Domincko, the phrase “love is the closest thing to hate” immediately comes to mind. I heard it explained once as that level of hate can only be achieved after someone’s heart has been broken which makes complete sense in Brad’s case. Though I’m sure he doesn’t have the self-awareness to realize or acknowledge that particular heartache is his doing alone and no one’s fault but his own.
Last week Wendy Williams claimed on her show that Angelina is behind the make it right smear campaign. His PR team must be very desperate 😂
Wendy williams hates any strong woman. She needs to get her own home in order before slamming others. She’s nothing but a talentless gossip hag.
As a resident of New Orleans, I bought into the idea that he was helping post-Katrina. And even though I didn’t lose a home and have anyone promise to “make it right” this makes me seethe with anger.
And that pic y’all default to of him makes him look like a middle aged sociopath.
He truly is a garbage human being. It’s shocking how he had – and still has – so many of us fooled.
Yeah – I completely fell for his act but I am ashamed to ever been a fan of his.
Me too i feel so bad for ever bashing Jen the way she handled her divorce from this scum she obviously had to fight back. we can see now that he was responsible for all the negative press she got after the whole thing
I dont feel bad for having been a fan. BUT I do look back at things that went down with him and various exes, his utter lack of his own personality and co-opting the interests of the women he was with and I’m taken aback that the red flags didn’t wave for me. I think Brad is a LOT like that Julia Roberts character in Runaway Bride – with a healthy splash of narcissism mixed in.
@Domincko – I won’t go that far. Jen manipulated the press quite a bit during that time as well and I have never forgotten how she passive aggressively pushed the Angelina is a villain narrative through her friends. But I do think back to stuff she said about him and it rings true with how he has been since Angelina left him.
Can you all imagine the reaction of the media if this very happened to any of Angie’s charities. SMH the media and its double standard
He’s a piece of sh*t
I’m just waiting for all the bad stuff he’s done to come out.
We really know nothing of substance about his life we just get the pretty boy white wash.
But because of what we do know about him, there’s going to be more.
I’m sure more will come out about him.
I remember all the positive hype around Make It Right and Brad was super involved and loving all the attention, including the Architectural Digest article. He WAS super involved.
And the yearly gala he did. Where did all that money go?
Except legally he has a pretty strong case to be dismissed. Just because Brad Pitt was out there raising money and garnering publicity does not mean he should be held personally liable for the shoddy construction. It is the same principle as not holding a CEO personally liable when a subordinate steals money from a company. While the CEO might get (and deserve) criticism and punishment for letting it happen on his/her watch, the law generally does not allow companies and shareholders to force the CEO to write a restitution cheque from his/her personal account.
You can hate the law, and you can judge Brad Pitt for his actions, but suing him in his personal capacity and attempting to hold him responsible for the acts of third parties that he seemingly had no direct control or supervisory authority over (namely, the suppliers, contractors, and subcontractors on each project) is a bad slippery slope.
Thanks, BearcatLawyer. Regardless of personal feelings on Pitt – from a legal standpoint it makes sense that he’s doing this.
Let’s say hypothetically the CEO stole that money, would he held personally responsible?
He once said he frequently checked in with residents and talked to them. The “no promises” thing hardly applies. And he spent a lot of time bragging and how much he was invovled on a day to day basis to help out with the building.
I’m sure that was a lie, but I suppose now he can’t refute the statement of it being purely for publicity. But if he had previously said he was involved, he’s saying his own words were lies? Don’t know much about the legal world, but that sounds like a poor logical rebuttle.
At the end of the day, this is fundamentally a contract and warranty dispute. If it is not in the sales contract or the home warranty, I doubt any court in the world will hold Pitt liable for his statements in the media or even to the homeowners. Sadly, most of the time an oral promise means nothing if the actual written contract documents do not reflect it.
Pitt’s and MIR’s defense will almost certainly be, “We trusted the warranties of the suppliers, contractors, and subcontractors. Any statements we made to potential homeowners were based solely on their guarantees. They are the bad guys. We and the homeowners have been screwed by them.” This is known in certain legal circles as the SODDI defense – some other dude did it.
As for the CEO in my hypothetical, if s/he personally stole money from the company, then yes, the company and/or its shareholders could hold him/her personally responsible and even sue for restitution.
The trouble with this lawsuit is that the MIR homeowners are arguing the Brad Pitt the individual should pay them to repair or replace their homes because he supposedly made promises to them when he was acting as a founder and promoter of the MIR Foundation. But is not clear that Brad had any authority to promise them anything, nor do we know exactly what both sides ultimately agreed to in the sales contracts for the homes. It is equally unclear whether Brad personally benefited from the money raised from donations and home sales. MIR may have done a crappy job building these houses and Brad may have spouted a lot of BS, but legally it does not automatically translate into personal liability.
I think we talked about this before and I agree, personal liability won’t happen here, but as the founder and a board member of the organization, he has a lot of answering to do.
I’m confused how they raised SOOO much money, and were still charging pretty much the full price for the houses. And I’d be curious how his personal finances tied into the whole thing. Something’s fishy.
Oh, MIR for sure has a lot to answer for, and its officers and directors will undoubtedly be deposed extensively in this case. But I daresay their errors and omissions insurance will cover most of their actions – including the alleged verbal promises made by Pitt and other board members.
He does Not believe in taking responsibility for Any of his Actions. I hope now the public is starting to see the real truth about this person.
I’m reading the 2009 Architectural Digest article he did now. It’s all about him (and AJ and the kids) being there, how he started it, etc. He’s going to have a hard time claiming no involvement, given that he took every press opportunity to showcase it and himself.
Also by then, they had raised $30 million. THIRTY MILLION. According to their own site, they’ve built 100 houses so far.
Think what $30 million could have done for Habitat for Humanity, or SPB.
I remember Mike Holmes from Holmes on Holmes helping build a house for Make It Right, do you know if the one he built is still going strong or part of the law suit?
It was his chance to be seen as a serious architect of sorts. He’s longed to have the notierty of a stud-type architect, but I bet he can’t read a blueprint. And this goes back before Angelina. There’s a photo of Brad with Frank Ghery, and it so irritated me at the time because my (now) late fiancée was an engineer and then an architect; those take countless hours of calculus and a different mind to become—Brad majored (no shade/much respect) in journalism….(One of those acors who say they dropped out two weeks before graduation with two credits short) And the curriculum is much different for those fields. I always question anyone who makes those claims.
I’m an architect myself, and it always bugged me that he got to “play” architect because he was famous, while the rest of us went through at minimum 5 years of grueling university, long hours of work experience, exams, and all the other professional requirements of the career. There was something a few years ago about him being chosen to “design” a hotel!
Omg those photos 😂😂😂
Where did all the millions he helped raise go to? investigating Reporters should be following the money.
pretty on the outside, ugly, vain, insipid & vapid on the inside.
I’ve been inside one of those MIR homes in the ninth ward. I had an opportunity in college to attend a leadership weekend at Tulane circa about 2008 and we took a group field trip to the construction site. The one we got to walk in was brand new and just had been recently finished. It was impressive due to the flood and hurricane prevention methods and materials they used etc. However, I do remember thinking it looked like it had been thrown together quickly. They told us about future plans of other houses to be built in the area and I remember thinking it sounded too good to be true – like saying they were planning to build tons of these homes in such a short time span, I was skeptical about the quality.
In his bank account so he can buy art around the world and spend 20 million dollars on lighting for Miraval in France. Lol
His birthday is today he has turn 55 years old. Still he does Not know how to be a Real Man.
He’s stuck in the 90s when he could get away with any and everything. He’s bragged about how much he’s gotten away with.
Not only did he do countless interviews about Mir he went and posed with families and riding a bike around town for paparazzi. Glad to see everyone is realizing what I’ve ALWAYS said – he’s in it for publicity and he expects others to do the work so he can take credit. MIR, plan B, parenting. He’s a FRAUD.
He’s desperate to get out of responsibility for Mir because he’s going to lose a sh-t load of $. When he loses expect him to file bankruptcy.
Who knew he was such a POS? Besides his exes.
Ah, the header pic that keeps on giving 😂