Nov. 19, 2007

You know times are tough for the tabloids when a less-than-celebrity-savvy interview subject living half a world away questions their journalistic standards.

An Ethiopian woman who says she's the birth mother of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's 2-year-old daughter Zahara tells Reuters there's no truth to claims she wants the tyke to "come home."

Mentwabe Dawit is featured on the cover of the current In Touch under the headline, "Zahara's family wants her back. It's Angelina's worst nightmare. Will she lose her child?" (Short answer: No.)

"I want my daughter to come home to see where she is from," the magazine quotes her as saying. "Her grandmother and I both tried very hard to raise her, and I want her to come home to regain her identity."

Brad Pitt and Zahara Jolie-Pitt visit Central Park in New York on Aug. 28.

But in an interview on Saturday at her very humble home in the city of Awasa, Dawit maintained her words were taken out of context by "so-called journalists" who said they were envoys of the weedy Oscar winner. She insists she's never challenged the 2005 adoption.

"This was a mistake," she explained. "It was something I never said."

Dawit also repeats what she told the magazine about the circumstances leading to the adoption, specifically, that she bolted from home five months after giving birth because she couldn't feed her infant.

"I decided to flee rather than watch her die," she admitted.

She left the child in the care of her mother, who reportedly searched for her for several months before finally presuming her dead and putting the baby up for adoption.

Dawit, for her part, stresses how glad she is the tot is living with a movie star, a point she emphasizes by kissing a picture of Jolie, according to Reuters.

"This is to show I have no ill feelings towards her," she said. "I think my daughter is a very fortunate human being to be adopted by a world-famous lady. I wish them both all the success they deserve."

The agency that facilitated Angelina's adoption of the spirited Zahara states it was "legal and irrevocable," adding that her grandmother signed court papers affirming the mother was no longer living.

"The controversy is media hype by unethical journalists exploiting the poverty of the grandmother," adoption agency head Tsegaye Berhe scoffs to Reuters.

Meanwhile, in other Brangelina news that we can think of no tactful way to segue seamlessly into, the London Daily Mail believes the prepossessing parents have found a fun way to keep the spark burning brightly in their rumor-beset romance.

Seems the megastars made a shopping expedition during their brief stop in London for the Nov. 11 premiere of "Beowulf," hitting up Coco de Mer, an "erotic emporium" that sells everything from lacy lingerie to "tools for the bedroom arts."

The paper claims the "frisky couple" browsed the shop's adult-oriented wares for about an hour before exiting with a "bag full of goodies."

Next: A Boy for Nicole & Joel? Plus, Paris Is a Giver