Jolie-Pitt Bodyguard Roughs Up Photographer

Actors like Sean Penn and Johnny Depp are known to get a little ornery with celebrity photographers to protect their privacy, but tabloid darlings Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have security staff to deal with that dirty work.

A bodyguard for the pair roughed up a photographer when he tried to snap a picture of them leaving their hotel in Pune, India and the violent incident was caught on tape by an Indian television station.

The pair has been staying at the Le Meridian hotel since they arrived in Pune last week – they’re filming a movie about the life of slain journalist Daniel Pearl there – but has been holed up, likely to avoid the media frenzy awaiting them outside.

When the couple tried to leave the hotel Saturday afternoon, one of their security guards caught a British photographer trying to snatch a shot and allegedly grabbed the paparazzo by the neck and shouted at him.

The skirmish was broadcast on India’s CNN-IBN news channel and the Hindustan Times newspaper also picked up the story and identified the photographer as Sam Relph of Barcroft Media.

The paper reported the security guard shouted at Relph several times to stop shooting pictures and when he refused to drop the camera the bodyguard got violent.

“He said if I took his pictures he would kill me,” the Times quoted Relph as saying. “I couldn’t breathe. He had his fingers on my windpipe and he knew what he was doing.”

Two Indian photographers said they were threatened by the same security guard.

Jolie and Pitt are reportedly scheduled on set Monday morning for the film “A Mighty Heart” in which Jolie plays the wife of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan.