This is how I think the story goes: two years ago, there was a charity auction for the Lili Claire Foundation, and a guy paid $30,000 for a meet-and-greet with Angelina Jolie. Two years later, and Angelina still hasn’t met this guy, and the Lili Claire Foundation hasn’t given this guy a reimbursement. So the guy is suing the Foundation.
The Lili Claire Foundation has a stellar record of good work for children with serious medical problems. However, I’ve never seen or read anything about Angelina Jolie being involved with The Lili Claire Foundation’s work. Did she really “donate” a meet-and-greet for the charity auction? If she did donate, why didn’t she show? Why didn’t the Lili Claire Foundation deal with this issue before? TMZ broke the story, and they have an “update” with a statement from the Foundation:
Would you pay $30,000 to NOT meet Angelina Jolie? That would be just nuts, right?
A man is suing the Lili Claire Foundation after he claims he forked over $30K (on his Amex) to meet Mrs. Brad Pitt — only it’s two years later and he hasn’t gotten the meet and greet he paid for … or his money back.
He wants his money back, plus damages.
UPDATE — A rep for the Lili Claire Foundation tells TMZ, “The Lili Claire Foundation was formed 11 years ago to help children and their families cope with the medical and personal difficulties flowing from neurogenetic disorders, such as autism, Downs Syndrome and Williams Syndrome. Among other ways it raises funds, The Lili Claire Foundation holds charitable auctions. The Lili Claire Foundation has a 100% track record of honoring its commitment to donors and recipients with respect to every single auction item sold to support its charitable services. In the rare event that a sold auction item cannot be satisfactorily delivered to the winning bidder through no fault of our own, The Lili Claire Foundation works faithfully for an appropriate resolution with our bidder.”
From TMZ
I’m perfectly aware that this is just the kind of story that will bring out some people screaming about “Angelina only does it for publicity, she’s such a whore, blah, blah”. Which is fine, everyone is entitled to their opinions. But something seems off with this story.
Keep in mind several things. One, this story might be bullsh-t. Two, this meet-and-greet might have been “donated” without Angelina’s knowledge. Three, had Angelina known that someone paid $30,000 to meet her, she would most likely show up. Four, if she only does it for attention, why didn’t she show up for the meet-and-greet, unless she had no idea? In any case, it really seems like the Lili Claire Foundation will probably give this guy his money back.
Angelina Jolie is shown in handcuffs on the set of Salt in NY on 3/21/09. Credit: Diane Cohen/ Fame Pictures and WENN.com
Silly man.
Someone audit Brangelina. Where did all the money they got from those pcitures go?
I’m not really a huge Angelina fan, but I don’t think she would no-show, that doesn’t sound like her.
In general, no charity would offer something that it hasn’t already had confirmation of, not at the $30k bidding level. If someone commits that much (as distinct from, let’s say, $100, even $1000 or so), then they know the bidder will be likely to want ‘payment’. But, not knowing the first thing about this particular charity and it’s track record, I have nothing else useful to say.
Kaiser – You’ll like this: Leslie Litt-Resnick, Co-Founder of the organization, is a two-time Emmy Award Nominee for her work on the hit comedy ‘Friends’. And the honorary board members include Courteney Cox Arquette, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry and …..Jennifer Aniston. 😆 That’s triangle never stops giving!!
*that triangle
Oh, that’s so funny, G! I knew Matthew Perry did a lot of work with the Foundation, but I didn’t know there were major “Friends” ties. Hmmm… I really wonder if the meet-and-greet was donated without Angelina’s knowledge.
What? To make her look bad?!? LMAO!
Yes. While we don’t know her personally, I’m inclined to believe that if AJ knew a guy had just donated 30k to a charitable foundation just to meet her, she’d show up. (Even though, hi, how creepy is that?)
And I believe the money from the pictures went to their charities 😛
They’ve already said that numerous times.
Kaiser, I heart you writing the Brange stories.
hmm geronimo, makes you wonder, doesn’t it.
I’ve experienced some of these no-show celebrity things. In one case, it was one of my favorite authors.
I wrote her to say that I was sorry that she was no longer able to make the event and hoped to catch her another time.
She wrote back that she had no idea of the event and asked for information about the people holding the event. She was quite upset that we were all told that she could not attend at the last moment when she was never booked for it to begin with!
Yet, thousands of folks were told she was a last minute no show!
Kaiser, you are such a Brangeloonie!!
There was a very important aspect that was not mentioned in this “suppossed” story: The man that bid the $30,000 to meet Angelina. First off, there is a screw loose in anyone’s brain that would pay to meet someone for $30,000, in fact a sadness, but more importantly & sad if to sue and take the $30,000 back away from the children with serious medical problems. I’ve never know Angelina not to show at anything she has committed to especially connected to needy children, she lives in tents in 3rd world countries for months at a time for god sake. Again, what is disturbing, whether she was a no-show or not is this man who obviously cared nothing about the CHILDREN but only about himself and is meeting Angelina. SICK & SELFISH! And to Ursula, before suggesting they do something other than give the money from pics to charity, records are avail for you to check that out, but that might cause u some actual time consuming work, so just go the easy route & throw that little “suggestion” out their into the ‘sphere’. I’de love to know how much u donate to charity vs. the amount u spend on Starbucks, or shall I say 7-11 coffee.
Lili Claire Lied to and about me after I donated generously to them for the past 3 years. I also have documentation to back it up. If they (Mainly, their Director Dana)would lie about all the things they lied about directly to me and in their letters, what else are they lieing about. The entire integrity of the foundation is in question.