Angelina's Pitt Stop? "It's true! The romance is on!" So proclaims Us Weekly of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who it says spent a cozy weekend together recently at a swanky Palm Springs resort. That headline, it seems, has been inevitable from the time Pitt, 41, and Jennifer Aniston, 36, announced their separation in January, and the accompanying article details the supposedly "steamy getaway" the "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" co-stars enjoyed over Easter weekend at the Parker Palm Springs Hotel. "They were kissing and holding each other," a spy tells the magazine. "He was rubbing her back. It looked romantic." The A-listers, who have vigorously denied persistent rumors of a relationship, were in the desert together for a W magazine photo shoot to promote their widely hyped romantic spy thriller, due out on June 10. Us says that hours after Jolie, 29, and her cuter-than-cute kid Maddox, 3, checked into an $895-a-night "secluded" villa (under the pseudonym Bryce Pilaf, a name Brad has also used), Pitt was spied making a beeline for her room. Unfortunately, the one amenity the deluxe desert digs doesn't seem to offer is privacy. Chatty insiders tell the mag that the pair spent most of their time in the villa, where Jolie ordered in room service (an expensive bottle of wine and a pistachio sauce-topped chocolate dessert) and had a manicure. "They didn't leave their room much," says one hotel worker. "Nobody really saw them." One of the scant sightings purportedly included Pitt and a bikini-clad Jolie swimming, lounging and gazing at one another by the pool. "It's obvious they were a couple," one hotel worker blabs to the mag. Tattles another eagle-eyed employee, who apparently moonlights as a body language expert, "Brad and Angelina were definitely having an intense romantic relationship, from what I saw. They did not behave like just friends." Adds a member of housekeeping, "They make a great couple." Pitt's rep, however, blasts the report. "This particular story is completely untrue," his spokeswoman tells Access Hollywood. "Because these tabloids are making so much money, and yes, I consider Us Weekly a tabloid, they go to great lengths to corroborate their stories, whether they are true or not." Us stands by its story, which includes Pitt's mouthpiece dismissing the amour chatter and insisting that the stars stayed in separate rooms situated far, far apart: "Brad stayed on one side of the property and Angelina was on the other." People also reports they had their own rooms and says they kept their distance during the photo shoot, which took place on March 25, the same day Aniston filed for divorce. "The only time Brad and Angelina came in contact was to take a picture," a source tells the magazine. The layout, by photographer Steven Klein, captures Pitt and Jolie posing as a happily married couple amid a large brood of children, along with some sexier snaps a deux. Meanwhile, it appears Aniston not only won custody of their Beverly Hills mansion in their still-in-the-works divorce talks, but she also got Courteney Cox. Us says that a few days after the photo shoot, Pitt crossed paths with his estranged wife's best pal at an L.A. restaurant. "She saw him and ignored him," a mole tells the magazine. Still, the former Sexiest Man Alive isn't letting the headlines keep him out of the public eye ... or from following Jolie's do-gooder example. On Wednesday, he joined Bono to announce the launch of One: The Campaign to Make Poverty History, which aims to raise public awareness of the problems plaguing the world's poorest countries. "I've seen it, I've been there, and to walk away from it and turn my back makes me culpable," explained Pitt (via the AP), who appears in a public service announcement to promote the campaign. "And I can't do that." The megastar, who visited Africa in November on a humanitarian mission (see pics of his trip at One.org), plans to return in the near future. Says Pitt, "This is just a beginning for me." |