Pitt exposed!

Vanity Fair magazine has splashed saucy photos of the actor.

Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt's representatives have hit out at Vanity Fair magazine after it splashed semi-naked photos of the actor on the cover of its December issue.

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The photos of Pitt - shown standing in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and a pair of socks - were taken by artistic photographer Robert Wilson in September 2005, TMZ celebrity website said.

But while Pitt, 42, signed a legal release when the photograph was taken, he was oblivious they would end up on Vanity Fair's cover more than a year later.

"We are very disappointed that Vanity Fair has chosen to put an unauthorized cover on their magazine," a spokesperson for Pitt said yesterday. "It seriously makes me question their integrity and motives."

A statement from Vanity Fair said Pitt's managers had been notified on October 5 of the decision to use the photo for its special "art" issue.

The hot hunk poses semi-nude

The magazine defended the decision, saying it had obtained the right to use all Wilson's photographs taken as he put together a study of video portraits.

"Vanity Fair decided to do a story on Wilson's video portraits and obtained rights to the entire collection of photographs from those sittings, which included Pitt's," the statement quoted by TMZ said.

Vanity Fair has a long track record of publishing notable cover photos, most famously a shot of a heavily pregnant Demi Moore posing naked and more recently world exclusive shots of Tom Cruise's baby daughter Suri.