Brad Pitt was excused from jury duty for being “too distracting”

This may or may not come as a big surprise to you, but Brad Pitt is a very handsome man. And a movie star. And those two things are, apparently, a perfect storm of unacceptability where the U.S. judicial system is concerned.

A Los Angeles judge has excused the Pittster from jury duty because he would be too much of a distraction for the other eleven jurors in the box. The judge declined comment, but lawyer William Lively, who hops out of nearby Santa Clarita, offered the following rationale for the decision:

You just can’t stick Brad Pitt in a jury box and expect 11 jurors to ignore him. It’s only natural that those jurors would be watching to see how Brad reacts to what’s being said and that they could be influenced by his opinions once the jury goes behind closed doors to render a verdict….It’s one of those things where [it’s like] ‘We’re not going to use you because it’s going to end up being about you.’

An anonymous source further commented that B-Pi was genuinely interested in serving on the jury, but couldn’t commit to an open-ended deal, as he would have been required to serve for the duration of the trial. That could have been hours, days, weeks, months–or even years.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, “being too handsome and famous” is the same excuse that President Clinton told people got him out of jury duty in 2003.