FRANCE:THE MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR world of celebrity baby photoshoots was yesterday braced for a record payout after the birth of twins to Hollywood actors Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.
Within hours of their birth on the French Riviera on Saturday night, Vivienne Marcheline and her brother Knox Leon Jolie-Pitt were reported to be worth at least $11 million (€6.92 million) for posing in nappies.
Jolie and Pitt, who now have six children under the age of seven, were reported to have arranged the same type of transaction with their daughter Shiloh Nouvel (2).
Two weeks after she was born in Namibia in 2006, her first photoshoot was auctioned to Peoplemagazine in the US and Hello!in Britain, in an arrangement estimated to be worth up to $10 million, breaking all records. The couple donated the fee to charity.
Nice Matin, the local paper in Nice, where the twins were born by Caesarean on Saturday night, reported the couple had sold the rights for the first photo to a US publication for $11 million, which would be given to charity. For weeks, American newspapers have speculated on a deal worth $15 million. The couple's publicists have not commented.
Picture agencies estimated that the twins could clinch the biggest ever "baby deal", reaching $20 million. The only other photo that "would possibly come that close is Britney Spears giving birth to an alien" said Darryn Lyons, owner of London celebrity photo agency Big Pictures.
The couple, among the highest-paid actors in Hollywood, have made million-dollar donations to Médecins Sans Frontières and the International HIV/Aids Alliance, as well as education projects for children in Iraq. Pitt has also supported projects to rebuild housing in New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
Magazines bidding for photographs will be keen to avoid any leaks to celebrity websites, such as happened before the Hello!publication in 2006.
Yesterday, paparazzi were camped out near the hospital on Nice's waterfront where Jolie gave birth.
The "Brangelina" family moved to France several months ago in preparation for the birth, setting up home in a 17th-century villa surrounded by forest and vines near the village of Correns in the Var, where bemused villagers have observed the toing and froing of the couple's helicopters.
Jolie (33) and Pitt (44) have three adopted children: Maddox, born in Cambodia; Pax, born in Vietnam; and Zahara, born in Ethiopia.
"Everything is fine," Jolie's doctor said after the planned Caesarean was brought forward "for medical reasons". - ( Guardian service)