Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's Million Dollar Babies

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt Welcome their Twins: For all of the Brangelina fans out there who don't already know, the wait is finally over. According to Forbes.com, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt welcomed their twins Saturday night, July 12, 2008. A 5lb 0.3 oz baby boy named Knox Leon and a 5lb baby girl named Vivienne Marcheline were born via Caesarean section in Lenval hospital in the south of France. The doctor who delivered the babies said that mom, dad and the babies were all doing very well. These newest Brangelina children will join an already crowded household (Maddox, 6, Pax, 4, Zahara, 3, and Shiloh, 2). These are the second and third biological children of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt (Maddox, Pax, and Zahara are all adopted). The twins, only hours old, are already extremely famous.

Now that the twins are here, photographers and paparazzi from all around the world will lie and wait for the chance to score the coveted "first photo". Photographs of the twins will undoubtedly fetch millions of dollars and make the cover of numerous national magazines. In fact, the first photos of Shiloh (Angelina and Brad's first biological child); brought in $4.1 million dollars which Angelina and Brad donated to African Children's charities. So how much were other celebrity babies worth?

1. Jennifer Lopez and her twins: $6 million
2. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and son Pax: $2 million
3. Christina Aguilera and her son Max: ~$2 million
4. Nicole Richie and daughter Harlow: $1 million
5. Gwen Stephani and Kingston: $575,000
6. Jamie Lynn Spears was paid $1 million the pregnancy announcement

This summer ushered in a Hollywood Baby Boom with Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, and Jamie Lynn Spears recently giving birth. Surely these newest Hollywood additions will command a hefty paycheck to sit in front of the camera. It seems like the public just can't get enough of celebrity baby photos and glossy magazines are paying the price. The largest sum to be paid will undoubtedly be to the Jolie-Pitt twins who may even reach double digits! These tiny babies will make more in one photo shoot than most of us will ever see in our lifetime.

Is it worth the price?

With millions of dollars being paid out every year to actors and actresses turned mom and pop, the question remains..."Is it worth the price?" The large national magazines say YES! Vanity Fair who gained exclusive baby photos of Tom Cruise's daughter Suri Cruise saw sales increase 60% that edition. Luckily for Vanity Fair, they paid nothing for the photos and Tom and Kate got great publicity. No matter what the price, magazines are flying off the shelves. Maybe the fans like the chance to see their favorite celebrities turn into normal people, with spit up and drool on their shoulders. Maybe we just like seeing that their babies look no different from ours (despite the posh strollers and thousand dollar accessories).

In this era of greed and soaring prices, some celebrities, like Tom Cruise, are refusing to cash in, and that is a refreshing change. In 2002, Sarah Jessica Parker and her husband Matthew Broderick stunned the paparazzi when they exited the hospital and actually posed for cameras. With hundreds of photographers snapping thousands of photos, no one picture was worth any real money. Instead of taking the coveted $1 million dollar photo of baby Wilke, the disappointed paparazzi found themselves taking pictures everyone in town owned. Maybe more actors and actresses will surprise us this summer with their selflessness, but in reality I think it will be the price tags that continue to surprise us the most.