A viral Facebook post shared over 600 times claims actor Brad Pitt made statements about Hollywood running a pedophile ring.

Verdict: False

There is no record of Pitt making the statements. They originated on a website that has published misinformation in the past.

Fact Check:

The Facebook post, shared Feb. 15, alleges Pitt described “how the whole TV and film industry is run around a culture of grooming children for child trafficking networks that reach across the United States and beyond.” It attributes multiple quotes to the award-winning actor.

“You’ve heard of the Illuminati right? The secret societies, the politicians, the bankers and the media – they’re the ones running these pedophile rings, and they’re the ones that run the world, and it all goes back to Hollywood,” the post quotes Pitt as saying in part. “Kids wanna be in movies, or should I say; parents want their kids to be in movies, and they’ll do anything to get them famous.”

However, there is no record of Pitt, who does not appear to have verified social media accounts, making the statements attributed to him in the post. (RELATED: No, Ruth Bader Ginsburg Didn’t Say Pedophilia Is “Good For The Children’)

If Pitt had made the comments, they almost certainly would have been picked up by the media, given his celebrity status. No reports from major media outlets crediting the quotes to him were found. Instead, Vice and Snopes reported in 2017 that Pitt had not made the statements.

The quotes first appeared in a now-unavailable June 2017 article published by the website Neon Nettle, according to Snopes. The website appears on FactCheck.org’s “Misinformation Directory” and in PolitiFact’s “Fake News Almanac.”

The Facebook post also mentions a supposed video of actress Angelina Jolie talking about “Hollywood Illuminati rituals.” While Check Your Fact did find a YouTube video that purportedly shows Jolie talking about sexual activities, the Illuminati is not mentioned.