Alia Shawkat is shutting down romance rumors between her and Brad Pitt.
Shawkat and Pitt have been spotted together on multiple occasions, though a source told 360aproko in November that the two were just friends. In a new interview with Vulture, the 31-year-old actress directly addresses speculation about her relationship with the 56-year-old A-list star.
“We’re not dating. We’re just friends,” Shawkat says.
The former Arrested Development star also describes the intense scrutiny she came under for spending time with Pitt.
“I’ve gotten press, but not like that,” she notes. “Not so uncontrollable.”
Shawkat recalls waking up one morning and realizing she was trending on Twitter due to her outing at a playhouse in Los Angeles with Pitt in September.
“I was like, I don’t believe this,” she says. “All my friends were like ‘What’s going on?’ and sending me photos. I just felt overwhelmed. It’s that feeling of being naked in school, like, Oh my God, everyone’s looking at me.”
Pitt also shut down dating rumors during an interview with The New York Times Magazine in December, when he was asked whether he reads stories about himself. He admitted he doesn’t go out of his way to avoid them, though he doesn’t seek them out.
“I don’t know how many women they’ve said I’ve been dating the last two or three years,” he said. “And none of it’s true.”
Still, Pitt has a sense of humor about all the interest in his personal life. During his appearance on the WTF With Marc Maron podcast in January alongside his Once Upon a Time in Hollywood co-star, Leonardo DiCaprio, he joked about being the subject of so many tabloid reports.
“I’m just like trash mag fodder,” he said. “Because of my disaster of a personal life, probably.”
