Ellen DeGeneres' new digs: Brad Pitt's mansion

Ellen DeGeneres and wife Portia de Rossi are downsizing their lifestyle, big time! The talk show queen and the actress just bought Brad Pitt's former mansion for a cool $12 million.

Think that's expensive? The home is actually a huge downgrade from DeGeneres and de Rossi's 15,000-square-foot home worth $49 million. Yes, $49 million dollars.

Pitt bought the pad after he broke off his marriage from Jennifer Aniston. The four-bedroom, four-bath, 4,000 square foot house is a stone's throw from the beach — the perfect pad for a pre-daddy Pitt. He now owns several properties around the world that are large enough to fit his brood with Angelina Jolie.

DeGeneres loves to purchase property — mostly because she always lived in rented houses growing up.

"I love houses, so I am constantly decorating and redesigning. We never owned a house when I was growing up. We rented, and we moved about every two years, just far enough to have to start at a new school," she told Good Housekeeping in October.

"So then, when I started making money, I bought a house and fixed it up, then moved on to the next one. Designing is my hobby. If I didn't do what I do for a living — at some point when I don't do this for a living — I'll probably just do design work… I enjoy putting rooms together. I like looking at something that needs tweaking and knowing what it could be. I like seeing something as a blank canvas and making it better."

A love of design and extravagant property isn't the only thing Pitt and DeGeneres have in common — she's working with Pitt's Make It Right foundation on a fundraiser to rebuild her hometown of New Orleans. Pitt's charity helps rebuild Hurricane Katrina-ravaged homes in the city's Lower Ninth Ward.

It's not the first time she's helped, either: DeGeneres has already raised $1.6 million to rebuild homes for 300 displaced New Orleans residents.

"I'm so happy I can be a part of this incredible foundation," DeGeneres said of the March 10, 2011, fundraiser she's hosting. "Brad Pitt is amazing — not only for what he started, but also because, who else can make a hard hat look like a jaunty fall fashion accessory?"

Image courtesy Nikki Nelson / WENN.com