What was supposed to be a night of celebration for Angelina Jolie took a turn for the bizarre when her date for the Hollywood premiere of Maleficent, Brad Pitt, was assaulted on the red carpet.
The couple was making their way through a gauntlet of fans and press toward the El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard when all hell broke loose.
"Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were signing autographs when a man jumped over the barrier and struck Mr. Pitt in the face," a Los Angeles Police Department spokesperson tells Yahoo.
Event security wrestled the man to the ground and detained him until LAPD arrived, took him to the Hollywood precinct, and arrested him for misdemeanor battery. As of Thursday morning, he remained jailed on $20,000 bail.
Police identified the man as Vitalii Sediuk. And while you might not recognize his name, you undoubtedly know his modus operandi. He's the gonzo Ukrainian "journalist" whose résumé is chock-full of similar encounters with A-listers at high-profile events.
Just last week, Sediuk bum-rushed the Cannes premiere of How to Train Your Dragon 2 and climbed under America Ferrera's gown. Before that, he had similar red-carpet run-ins with Bradley Cooper and Leonardo DiCaprio, and gave hydrangea-hating Madonna a bouquet of the flowers at a 2011 Venice Film Festival press conference.
He infamously snuck into the Grammys in 2013 and tried to hijack Adele's statuette from unamused presenter Jennifer Lopez.
Perhaps most notoriously, Sediuk was on the business end of a Will Smith slap after trying to smooch the actor during the 2012 Moscow premiere of Men in Black 3.
As for Pitt and Jolie, they handled the incident like the pros they are. Pitt brushed off the attack and was escorted into the theater without further drama as Jolie remained behind to work the carpet.
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