PITT BANNED.

New York Daily News columnist Lloyd Grove, who has a great gossip column called "Lowdown," started a new tradition last year of banishing a celebrity from his column, "in a ritual of culture-cleansing and cobweb-clearing." His pick last year was Paris Hilton and this year, Brad Pitt will hold the honor (being banned from a gossip column? I'm sure Pitt wont mind at all!). Why Brad, you ask? Well, here are Lowdown's top "banish Brad" reasons:

Brad's an okay actor, some of the time, and certainly a hunky movie star, most of the time - but he's no Russell Crowe. Except for a couple of performances in his 40-odd films - such as his breakout role as an irresistible bounder in "Thelma & Louise" - Pitt's star turns range from the bland to the ridiculous.

Apparently, it's all in the hair.

"With his highlighted blond locks and petulant pout, he looks more like the most famed hairdresser of all time," wrote Britain's Sunday Express about Pitt's Achilles in "Troy." Reviewing another earnest effort, the Miami Herald wrote: "Brad Pitt's hair is in rare form in 'Meet Joe Black.' It's hard to tell whether this is a result of the way he's been lighted or whether he's switched to a new brand of shampoo. ... If his movie career ever fizzles, he's got a good future hawking Vidal Sassoon."

Brad seems always to be in love ... with himself. Try reading these lines from Pitt's damage-control operation, his June GQ interview - published as he was ditching his wife for a younger woman, and then cruelly humiliating her in public again and again - without getting just a wee bit queasy: "The only thing to figure out is between Jen and I [sic]. And there's a beauty in that. There's a beauty in our coming together, and there's a beauty in this, for us. I'm actually really proud of us. We've done it another way - we've done it our way, and I love her for that. We've kept the love we have for each other."

Brad is as cold and shallow as thin ice on a teensy pond. As Aniston memorably told Vanity Fair - after her husband, his lover and their pretend children graced a W magazine photo spread titled "Domestic Bliss" - "There's a sensitivity chip that's missing."

Brad adopts the lifestyle, interests and passions of whatever woman he happens to be bedding. A slightly creepy collection of photographs from the archives of Star magazine shows Pitt aping his various girlfriends' dress and appearance - whether it be Jill Schoelen in 1988 (matching hats), Juliette Lewis in 1992 (back-combed and blond), Gwyneth Paltrow in 1997 (matching cropped blond hair) and Aniston in 2001 - much like dog owners who morph into their pets.

With Angelina, Brad has not only adopted her hobbies - taking flying lessons, for instance, to match Jolie's pilot's license, and joining her (laudably, of course) on her humanitarian tours of the Third World - he's adopted her children.

With the world's celebrity mags and gossip columns continuing to spill oceans of ink over Brad and his adventures for the foreseeable future, I can well afford to live without him - just like Jen.

Source: Lowdown