{"id":355770,"date":"2026-08-18T15:23:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T20:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/alia-shawkat-revisits-brad-pitt-dating-rumors-nearly-7-years-later-hes-just-my-friend"},"modified":"2026-08-18T15:23:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T20:23:19","slug":"alia-shawkat-revisits-brad-pitt-dating-rumors-nearly-7-years-later-hes-just-my-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/alia-shawkat-revisits-brad-pitt-dating-rumors-nearly-7-years-later-hes-just-my-friend","title":{"rendered":"Alia Shawkat Revisits Brad Pitt Courting Rumors Practically 7 Years Later: \u2018He\u2019s Simply My Good friend\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p>Alia Shawkat is revisiting one of the strangest chapters of her celebrity life nearly seven years after a friendship with Brad Pitt unexpectedly turned into months of romance headlines.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Arrested Development<\/em> actress addressed the speculation during an Aug. 16 appearance on <em>Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen<\/em>, where Andy Cohen admitted that he had been fascinated by the old rumors. Shawkat&#8217;s answer was straightforward: \u201cUm, no, he&#8217;s just my friend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She explained that director Spike Jonze introduced them and that she and Pitt connected through a shared interest in art. Their repeated public outings beginning in late 2019 were enough to fuel dating stories, even though Shawkat denied at the time that anything romantic was happening.<\/p>\n<p>This time, she was able to joke about an episode she once described as overwhelming. She even recalled that her grandmother kept a tabloid cover linking her to Pitt despite showing far less interest in Shawkat&#8217;s decades of acting work.<\/p>\n<h2>Shawkat Says Pitt Was Always \u2018Just My Friend\u2019<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Alia Shawkat Says She Bonded Over Art with Brad Pitt | WWHL\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Zv6gyNbE7ak?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Cohen raised the old romance rumors while Shawkat appeared alongside her <em>The Wrong Girls<\/em> costar Kristen Stewart and the movie&#8217;s writer-director, Dylan Meyer. \u201cI was obsessed with the Brad Pitt dating rumors,\u201d Cohen told her. \u201cMe too,\u201d Stewart added. \u201cI was enthralled.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is my favorite question to get asked,\u201d Shawkat joked before setting the record straight. \u201cUm, no, he&#8217;s just my friend,\u201d she said. \u201cWe became friends. Spike Jonze introduced us. It sounds all very chic and Hollywood.\u201d As <a href=\"https:\/\/ew.com\/alia-shawkat-addresses-brad-pitt-dating-rumors-years-later-12062044\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Entertainment Weekly reported<\/a>, Shawkat said Pitt&#8217;s enthusiasm for art helped turn the introduction into a friendship.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe met, and he&#8217;s really into art and he&#8217;s very cool and we became friends,\u201d she said. Shawkat also offered a simple explanation for why being seen together produced so much attention.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone thought we were dating, because if you stand next to him everyone thinks you&#8217;re dating,\u201d she said, joking that the assumption apparently extended \u201ceven\u201d to Pitt&#8217;s own mother. Cohen told her there were worse people to be romantically linked to. Shawkat agreed and described Pitt as \u201cgreat\u201d and \u201cthe coolest.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>The Rumors Became Much Bigger Than Their Friendship<\/h2>\n<p>The speculation began after Shawkat and Pitt were repeatedly seen together beginning in fall 2019. Among their outings were the \u201cL.A. on Fire\u201d exhibition at Wilding Cran Gallery in Los Angeles and an opera performance at the Hollywood Bowl. They were subsequently photographed or spotted together on other occasions, keeping the supposed romance in entertainment headlines into 2020.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/1165486\/alia-shawkat-finally-sets-the-record-straight-on-those-brad-pitt-dating-rumors\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">E! News reported in 2020<\/a> that Shawkat had already dismissed the speculation by saying, \u201cWe&#8217;re not dating. We&#8217;re just friends.\u201d She also described the sudden attention surrounding her as overwhelming. Before being linked to Pitt, Shawkat was not accustomed to paparazzi following her daily movements.<\/p>\n<p>By 2022, she was even more candid about what the experience had felt like. In an interview with <em>The New Yorker<\/em>, Shawkat said paparazzi followed her to her studio and photographed ordinary moments in her life. What particularly frustrated her was the realization that being romantically linked to an older male movie star had generated more widespread attention than the acting career she had built since childhood.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the time, it was not fun at all,\u201d she said. Shawkat called the situation \u201cironic and gross and stupid,\u201d while emphasizing that her frustration was with the phenomenon surrounding the rumor.<\/p>\n<h2>Her Grandmother Kept the Tabloid Cover<\/h2>\n<p>During her new <em>Watch What Happens Live<\/em> appearance, she recalled that her grandmother had saved an <em>Us Weekly<\/em> issue featuring Shawkat and Pitt. \u201cThere was a really bad photo,\u201d she said, recalling a cover that presented her as the mysterious new woman in Pitt&#8217;s life.<\/p>\n<p>The attention apparently impressed her grandmother in a way Shawkat&#8217;s long film and television r\u00e9sum\u00e9 had not. \u201cI&#8217;ve been working in film for 30 years, you&#8217;ve never seen anything, but you love this,\u201d Shawkat remembered telling her. Shawkat said she was embarrassed at the time and told her grandmother to throw it away.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Pitt Apparently Barely Knew the Rumors Existed<\/h2>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1392098\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1392098\" style=\"width: 1270px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Alia Shawkat\" class=\"wp-image-1392098 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/wealthofgeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Nenaslovljeni-dizajn-2026-08-18T154053.756.jpg\" alt=\"Alia Shawkat, Brad Pitt\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1392098\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image Credit: Kathy Hutchins, Tsuni-USA \/ Shutterstock.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>One of the more unusual parts of the story was how differently the publicity affected the two friends. Shawkat told <em>The New Yorker<\/em> that she eventually explained the frenzy directly to Pitt.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know everyone thinks we&#8217;re dating? And there&#8217;s this whole thing, and I&#8217;m being followed,\u201d she recalled telling him. According to Shawkat, Pitt responded, \u201cI&#8217;m sorry. It happens. If you hang out with me, it happens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe had no awareness of it at all,\u201d she said.&nbsp;Pitt also addressed the broader pattern of romance speculation around him in a 2019 interview with <em>The New York Times<\/em>. He said numerous women had been linked to him over the previous few years and \u201cnone of it&#8217;s true.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/wealthofgeeks.com\/alia-shawkat-revisits-brad-pitt-dating-rumors-nearly-7-years-later-hes-just-my-friend\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alia Shawkat is revisiting one of the strangest chapters of her celebrity life nearly seven years after a friendship with Brad Pitt unexpectedly turned into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":355773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4557],"tags":[30955,1221,30957,32063,20236,32064,28927,12247,16163,13955,32065],"class_list":["post-355770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing","tag-alia-shawkat","tag-brad-pitt","tag-dylan-meyer","tag-gas-relationship-tales","tag-hollywood-bowl","tag-improvement-actress","tag-kathy-hutchins","tag-kristen-stewart","tag-spike-jonze","tag-the-new-yorker","tag-wilding-cran-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355770"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":355772,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355770\/revisions\/355772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.etrafficlane.com\/60dollarmiracle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}