On Wednesday, a photographer with Splash News, “the world’s leading celebrity and breaking news agency,” got the money shot in Hawaii: Sean Penn, 56, smooching the 24-year-old actress daughter of Vincent D’Onofrio and Greta Scacchi.
On Thursday, the Daily Mail and other gossip sites published pictures of Penn with Australian-born Leila George.
(The couple later were captured during a Thursday visit to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.)
On Friday, the tut-tutting began.
But our curiosity goes back to the original paparazzo — the shooter with a long lens at the Hawaii beach. How much did he or she get paid?
Splash News, part of Branded Entertainment Group, has an office in Sherman Oaks. It’s not likely to divulge its payments.
But Fortune magazine in 2007 reported that People paid $4.1 million for pictures of Angelina Jolie-Brad Pitt baby photos. Just a photo of Brangelina strolling fetched a reported $500,000.
So a six-figure payday was possible for the Penn-George images.
“A lot of being a good paparazzo is luck,” Gary Morgan of Splash News told eonline. “It’s nine hours of boredom and 30 seconds of excitement.”
Meanwhile came priceless reactions:
Do the young girls that let Sean Penn kiss them have fathers and brothers??
Apparently not— Purple Smoothie (@devsmadden11) October 7, 2016
If I worked as a pap, I’d be afraid to take photos of Sean Penn. He just looks like he’ll go buck wild any second. https://t.co/RklKJhnCe2
— Loukia Borrell (@LoukiaBorrell) October 6, 2016
Sean Penn, another middle aged man, is dating a 24yo woman.
What a shock, life is so unpredictable you know— Evy (@witchcraftev) October 7, 2016
Sean Penn is dating Vincent D’Onofrio’s daughter and my first thought was: “I can’t wait for Sean Penn to get murdered by Vincent D’Onofrio”
— VicGOREia ? (@vqnerdballs) October 6, 2016