Brad Pitt Doesn’t Mean to be a Jerk

Here’s Brad Pitt’s latest revelation: he has facial blindness. The 49-year-old actor told Esquire that people think he is dissing them because he can’t remember their faces. He just can’t retain a person’s image in his memory for say, a few seconds. The next time he sees them, it’s like meeting them for the first time all over again! It’s made people perceive him as a jerk, egotistical and conceited.

This is VJ writing this, simultaneously roaring with laughter. Not because I am callous — au contraire, I can totally sympathize with Brad. I don’t have facial blindness — I have car blindness. I don’t know one car from another and it’s terrible! But a big source of amusement to my children who will take me shopping and then wildly laugh when they see me trying to get in the wrong car. So I got this mental image of me trying to get in Brad’s car while he is trying to remember my face. I wouldn’t perceive him as a jerk for not remembering me because I’ve never met him, but he might perceive me as a car thief.

The condition is actually called prosopagnosia and although Brad says he has not been officially diagnosed with it, he read about it and the symptoms fit. He said he may go get tested. Apparently, some folks are just born that way. Others get it after suffering a head injury. There is no mention of it being linked, at least on the Prosopagnosia Research page, about it possibly being caused by any of that drug use Brad also talked about. Brad has already been added, with lightning speed, to the prosopagnosia wikipedia page although his case is noted as “unconfirmed”.

The revelation sparked many a joke on twitter, wondering how he tells his 6 children apart, and marveling at the irony of being married to the beautiful Angelina Jolie, but not being able to remember her face. Here’s the funniest tweet we’ve seen so far:

Brit Zombie ‏@BRITSO5000 23 May: “Thanks 2 brad Pitt creating a nu disease called #faceblindness, I will never get n trouble 4 not recognizing women I have slept with again.”