Star laughs over ‘Brad Pitt for Mayor’ fund-raising effort in New Orleans

THE OLYMPIAN | • Published August 14, 2009

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The idea of Brad Pitt running for New Orleans mayor has generated a lot of buzz around the city even though he isn’t eligible. It also generated some laughs for the actor in a Thursday television interview.

Many residents have been sporting “Brad Pitt for Mayor” T-shirts since mid-June, when a Tulane University professor and two brothers who own a New Orleans T-shirt shop joined forces to launch a quasi-campaign to convince Pitt to run. The actor founded the Make It Right organization in 2007 to build houses for low-income residents who lost their homes during Hurricane Katrina.

Pitt said on NBC’s “Today” that he’s noticed the shirts but laughed off the idea of running.

“I don’t have a chance.”

He joked: “I’m running on the gay marriage, no religion, legalization and taxation of marijuana platform.”

Josh Harvey, 31, who sells the shirts at his Storyville T-shirt shop is donating $2 to the Make it Right program for every shirt sold. The shirts retail for $20, and so far, more than $2,000 has gone to Make It Right, Harvey said.