Chris Pine may not be the brightest bulb. About three weeks ago, the rumor going around was that Star Trek hottie Chris was enjoying some “under the radar” hook-ups with The Hills star Audrina Patridge. I suspected at the time that the hook-ups were on the lowdown because, really, who wants to admit they hooked up with Audrina? However, it seemed those hook-ups were turning into something more significant, because a few weeks later, a report came out that Chris Pine’s friends were all pissed off because fame had gotten to his head, and he had ditched all of his old buddies to hang out with a new, cooler Hollywood crowd that included Audrina. Now it seems Chris realizes the error of his ways, and he’s ditched Audrina to keep it real. Either that, or someone told him that Audrina’s not really a “get” for an up-and-coming movie star:

Chris Pine has reportedly dumped The Hills star Audrina Patridge because he couldn’t handle a public romance.

The Star Trek actor is said to have started dating the reality star last month after meeting at the ShoWest event in Las Vegas earlier in the year. People close to the couple confirmed that they were dating after they were spotted having dinner together in Los Angeles, and the pair sat next to each other at the MTV Movie Awards at the weekend.

But a source has now revealed that the focus on the couple at Sunday’s ceremony was too much for Chris: “Chris got freaked out by all the attention and pulled away.”

“He’s a shy guy and doesn’t want to be in the spotlight.”

Another source told Hollyscoop that the move was also political: “Chris Pine was forced to dump Audrina because his camp wants him to take the right strategic steps to become a big movie star.”

“Dating a reality show star would tarnish his image.”

[From Fametastic]

Yeah, I think Chris probably dumped Audrina for the sake of his career, not because he’s “shy”. I don’t buy the “shy” argument at all. I used to really like Chris, he seemed like a nice, funny guy. He might have done some damage to his career and image with this Audrina stuff, though. At the very least, his female fan base now thinks he has horrible taste in women. Too sad.