Matt Petit/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images; Marc Piasecki/WireImage Brad Pitt (L); Lykke Li
Brad Pitt has struck up a friendship with Lykke Li.
Despite a report that the actor, 58, is dating the 35-year-old Swedish singer and model, a source close to Pitt says Li is just part of “a large group of artsy friends that he enjoys hanging out with.”
“Lykke Li and Alia Shawkat are part of this group,” the insider says. “He likes having female friends too.”
(Reps for Pitt and Li had no comment when reached by PEOPLE.)
According to the source, Pitt “is dating, but not seriously.”
“He still keeps in touch with Nicole [Poturalski],” the insider adds of the German model Pitt was last linked to in 2020.
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Pitt, who is generally private regarding his love life, was seen arriving at Le Castellet Airport in France with Poturalski, 29, in August 2020. But a source told PEOPLE that October that any connection between the two had cooled.
“It was a casual fling and that’s it,” the source said.
Shawkat was also spotted with Pitt in 2019, although a source told PEOPLE their relationship was purely platonic. In a recent interview with The New Yorker, Shawkat, 32, said Pitt “had no awareness” of romance rumors surrounding them. “He doesn’t read that s—,” she said.
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Pitt — who has been in an ongoing custody battle with ex-wife Angelina Jolie since their split in 2016 — told The New York Times Magazine in December 2019 that he stopped paying attention to press about himself around 15 years ago.
“I stopped reading all press about 2004,” said the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood actor. “Not just reviews. I mean any magazine in the doctor’s office. Because some of it would bounce around like a rat in the skull. It would stay there, and it would inform some of my decisions and choices in work, in life, and I didn’t find any of it helpful.”
“I don’t go out of my way to avoid it; I just don’t seek it out,” Pitt continued.
The Academy Award winner added, “I don’t know how many women they’ve said I’ve been dating the last two or three years, and none of it’s true.”
