Is Sean Penn wooing Florence Welch?

Wonderwall, Monday, November 19, 2012, 1:49pm (PST)

By Kat Giantis

• Sean Penn has long had a soft spot for musical ladies. He married and divorced Madonna and dated Jewel. But has the cranky, weather-beaten Oscar winner set his sights on Florence Welch?

  The London Daily Mail claims Penn, 52, "hit it off instantly" with the titian-haired British chanteuse, 26, when they met at a charity event late last month in Los Angeles (see pic below).

  "Sean was flirting with her all evening," says an insider, "and they got along like a house on fire." So much so that the actor purportedly "asked to meet up with her again."

  But a Penn source pooh-poohs the story, telling Gossip Cop it's "exaggerated" and the paper is "making something out of nothing."

  Sean, who dated Scarlett Johansson after his divorce from Robin Wright was finalized, was last seen in the company of his sometime squeeze, model Petra Nemcova. Florence called it quits with boyfriend James Nesbitt in September, ostensibly to focus on her career.

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