Brad Pitt attends Kanye West's Sunday church service
"Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood" star Brad Pitt on Sunday attended the latest in rapper Kanye West's weekly, invitation-only itinerant church services.
Photos and videos posted by attendees and fan sites show Pitt, 55, and West, 42, briefly smiling and chatting amid a large crowd in a parking lot or an empty lot across a street from an unidentified church, with a large touring bus parked in the background. The Grammy winner's wife, reality-TV star and entrepreneur Kim Kardashian West, 38, described the event in a tweet as "Sunday Service in Watts today," referring to the predominantly African-American neighborhood in Los Angeles.
An attached 86-second video shows a mostly black audience singing along to an upbeat gospel song set to the tune of the late Tupac Shakur's "California Love." An Instagram post Sunday by one attendee's account reads, "Watts Up! Sunday Service with Kanye," accompanied by a 14-second video of the crowd singing a gospel song to the tune of "Shout" by the band Tears for Fears.
Kanye West has not commented publicly on this week's service, which according to multiple reports and social-media posts was also attended by Kim Kardashian West's sisters Kourtney and Khloé Kardashian and half sister Kendall Jenner; "The Real" co-host and former Cheetah Girls singer Adrienne Bailon; music-industry executive L.A. Reid; and radio host Big Boy, who posted an Instagram Story photo of himself and Pitt. "When Brad Pitt begs you for a pic, who do you do? You take the pic," read graphical text on it. Pitt has not commented and has no social-media accounts.
Since January, Kanye West has hosted the regular Sunday gatherings, which according to attendees who spoke anonymously to Variety are invitation-only, with guests required to sign nondisclosure agreements; it was unclear if social-media posts are exempted. Locations have included "a secret space in Burbank, West's home studio in Calabasas and the surrounding hills and forests of Los Angeles. One service took place at the Adidas U.S. headquarters in Portland, Oregon," the trade magazine said.
West livestreamed the Sunday services held April 21 at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and on Aug. 25 at a park in Dayton, Ohio, weeks after a mass shooting in that city on Aug. 4.
Kim Kardashian West told Elle magazine earlier this year that the services are "honestly more like a healing experience for my husband. … It's definitely something he believes in — Jesus — and there's a Christian vibe," she said, although noting, "Kourtney's best friends come all the time and they're Muslim. All my Jewish friends came on [a recent] Sunday; they loved it. Everyone that comes understands it's just a really healing experience with an amazing choir, and amazing messages about love to start off your week."