Many couples celebrate their nuptials by presenting each other with memorable gifts, but when you’re the wealthiest and most famous newlyweds in the world, you need to do things in a big way! That’s just what superstars Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt did, since the beautiful actress gifted her new husband with a rare and precious timepiece worth a cool $3 million. Kim and Kanye, eat your hearts out!
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have been inseparable since meeting on the set of the film “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” nearly a decade ago, but the pair just got around to making it legal in August. Now the photogenic newlyweds are co-starring again, this time in a film called “By the Sea” that is now filming on the island of Gozo in Malta.
It was on Gozo that a friend of the couple was spotted taking a watch to a small jewelry shop so that it could be engraved with a special message saying, “To Roly from Nessa,” referring to the characters that Jolie and Pitt play in the film. Jeweler George Farrugia leaked the news to British tabloid The Mirror, stating: “I did inscribe the watch. It was for Brad, and it was a rare one. It was very valuable. I wasn’t nervous about the inscription because I knew I could do the work perfectly.”
So how rare and how valuable? According to the paper, the timepiece in question is a very rare 1952 Patek Philippe with an estimated price tag of $3.2 to 4 million. This watch sounds very similar to a Patek Philippe watch with diamonds adorning the face and both platinum and croc bands that recently sold for $4M at Christie’s auction house. According to luxury watch experts Crown & Caliber, those diamonds were “conflict free,” fitting in with one of Jolie’s favorite causes.
Although three or four mil sounds like a fortune to most of us, it’s just chump change to Mr. and Mrs. Pitt, since his fortune is estimated at $240M and hers at $145M. The 50-year-old Pitt is so rich that he’s considering retirement from the screen to spend more time with his wife and their six children. He told GQ, “I’ve been slowing down for a while now. And slowly transitioning to other things. And, truthfully, I do want to spend more time with my kids before they’re grown up and gone.”
This watch was rumored to be the ultra-rare J.B. Champion Observatory timepiece, but Forbes.com has refuted the report. It seems that the Patek Philippe owned by the famous southern lawyer was stamped with “Made Especially for J.B. Champion” on the dial, and is not the same watch that Jolie purchased for Pitt. The J.B. Champion watch has recently changed hands, but the buyer remains anonymous.
Hopefully, Pitt will be wearing his new Patek Philippe watch out in public sometime soon so we can all get a good look at it and fantasize about having one of our own.
