Jason Merritt/Getty ImagesDid Brad Pitt propose to Angelina Jolie months ago and not immediately inform the media?
The nerve!
A source told E! News that the parents of six decided to get married "last year." So, does that mean Jolie's exposed leg was actually the lesser of two interesting things happening on the Oscar red carpet in February?
Well, we have heard that it took Pitt a year to design the Robert Procop diamond ring that's now prominently weighing down Jolie's left hand. Hence, his proposal was no spur-of-the-moment decision made last week.
Life & Style is reporting that Pitt proposed over the Christmas holiday, though Us Weekly says he offered up that custom 16-carat (!) pile of rocks, estimated to be worth $500,000, "on a recent spring day."
Whatever the most accurate scenario is, we do believe the rumor that the Jolie-Pitt nuptials will probably be—to our epic disappointment—a relatively low-key affair. They've been together for seven years and have six kids, so will they really be aiming for the kind of scrutiny that a huge wedding will entail?
We can only hope.
However, judging by the estimated amounts paid for photos of big moments in Jolie-Pitt history, the price a magazine would be willing to pay for any wedding pics could still shatter the space-dollar continuum.
Us reportedly paid $500,000 for the first shots of "Brangelina: The Couple," back in 2005, the same amount People supposedly shelled out for the first images of Jolie pregnant with Shiloh.
People and OK! both got in on the first pics of Shiloh, for $4.1 million and $3.5 million, respectively—a get that led to a 45 percent uptick in sales for People that week.
In that same vein, the mag also shelled out an estimated $2 million for Jolie with the newly adopted Pax in 2007, before it and Hello broke the bank when Knox and Vivienne were born. The U.S. and U.K. mags funneled a combined $14 million into the Jolie-Pitt Foundation coffers for that exclusive.
—Reporting by Ken Baker and Claudia Rosenbaum