Hollywood heavyweights Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are expecting a baby
- From: "Chim" <ChimS1@xxxxxxx>
- Date: 20 Apr 2006 18:46:12 -0700
Updated:2006-04-20 18:54:01
Brangelina Media Circus Comes to Africa
Reuters
NEW YORK (April 20) - One superstar birth out the way, one to go.
With the news that movie star Tom Cruise and actress Katie Holmes
have produced their first child, celebrity baby hunters are focusing
their lenses on a remote corner of Africa where the next glittering
arrival is expected.
Hollywood heavyweights Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt , who are
expecting a baby within weeks, remain holed up in a coastal resort in
the African country of Namibia, playing an edgy cat-and-mouse game with
photographers eager for pictures that could earn them a fortune.
The spotlight on the celebrity pair -- dubbed "Brangelina" by gossip
media -- has jolted Namibia, a southwestern African country famous
chiefly for its empty spaces and some of the largest sand dunes in the
world.
Despite warnings from Namibian officials that Jolie and Pitt's privacy
will be protected, journalists are streaming to the isolated hamlet of
Langstrand, where the couple have taken up residence in the Burning
Shore Beach Lodge with stark views of the cold Atlantic and the vast
Namib desert.
"They are enjoying the peace and security in Namibia. The security is
to keep off you people," Samuel Nujoma, governor of Namibia's Erongo
area, which covers Long Beach, told Reuters. "We don't want them to be
harassed and you have been trying to harass them."
Regional newspapers have said Jolie, who they say "fell in love" with
Namibia when making a film there in 2003, is determined to give birth
in the country and may be considering giving the child a Namibian name.
She and Pitt already have two adopted children, one from Cambodia and
another from Ethiopia.
BIGGER THAN JESUS?
How and where the infant is born is of more than passing interest to
celebrity "paparazzi" photographers, who are hoping to score big with
the first pictures of the baby, said to be due on or about May 18.
New York magazine, in a recent feature on the hysteria surrounding the
Pitt-Jolie pregnancy, said their baby would be more sought-after than
that of Cruise and Holmes -- themselves the subject of an intense media
hunt before the announcement out of Los Angeles of their daughter's
birth Tuesday.
"Not since Jesus has a baby been so eagerly anticipated," said the
magazine, which quoted a gossip insider as speculating the child "could
be the most beautiful baby in the world."
Newspapers in Namibia and South Africa have offered tidbits about the
high-profile visitors.
Namibia's Afrikaans-language daily Die Republikein newspaper said
Jolie's gynecologist had approved the maternity facilities at a private
hospital in nearby Walvis Bay for what could be an unconventional
delivery.
"It's going to be a waterbirth," the newspaper said.
But hard news on the baby -- or its celebrity parents -- is almost
impossible to come by. The Namibian government is backing a beefy
security team that blocks photographers who try to get too close to the
hotel, using pepper spray in one case.
The hotel itself is shielded from prying lenses by new shadecloth
barriers, while Pitt, Jolie and their entourage fly out of airstrips on
visits to other parts of Namibia, including one trip to a game park
where it was suggested that lions would keep the paparazzi at bay.
(additional reporting by Howard Burditt in Langstrand, Manoah Esipisu
in Johannesburg)
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2006-04-19 17:17:24
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