Brad Pitt Reveals He’s Drinking Again After Seven Years Sober

Brad Pitt has opened up about drinking again after years of sobriety, saying he has returned to alcohol in a far more cautious way. The actor, now 62, previously quit drinking following his 2016 split from Angelina Jolie, a breakup that came after allegations involving a tense private jet flight during which Jolie claimed he poured alcohol on her and their children. Pitt later said he had walked away from alcohol and spent time confronting personal struggles through Alcoholics Anonymous. In a new, wide-ranging Esquire interview, however, the Oscar winner acknowledged that his sobriety has ended. The admission came after the interviewer noticed Pitt offering him a glass of wine. Asked whether the bottle was simply for guests, Pitt replied, “No, I got—I was sober for seven years. And then I got back off the wagon,” adding a small laugh. He emphasized that his drinking is now “in a more restrained manner,” explaining that he had become “overconfident a couple times” before realizing, “yep, nope, not good for me.” He added that it was “not in big quantities,” and said he can now “have a few” glasses of wine but not much more.

“But I can’t have a lot. I have to be professional about it,” Pitt told the magazine. The profile also noted that the actor has grown attached to his mornings, pointing out that drinking too much the night before can make someone miss “a lovely morning,” something Pitt no longer seems willing to waste. “Mornings are interesting,” the piece observed, “and he doesn’t want any more of them to go by unseen.” Pitt’s history with alcohol has long been tied publicly to the collapse of his family life, particularly after the 2016 plane incident that preceded the end of his marriage to Jolie. During that flight, the actor was accused of behaving abusively toward Jolie and their children, allegations he has denied.

In court documents filed in 2022, Jolie alleged that Pitt had been drinking on the private jet and poured alcohol on both her and the children, CNN reported at the time. The filing claimed, “At one point, he poured beer on Jolie; at another, he poured beer and red wine on the children.” Pitt denied the accusations, and after an FBI review of the alleged incident, he was not charged. When the filing became public, a source close to Pitt told CNN that the information had been available to all sides for almost six years and had already been used in earlier legal proceedings.

“There is nothing new here and serves no purpose other than being a media stunt meant to inflict pain,” the source said. By 2017, Pitt was speaking publicly about having quit alcohol, describing himself in an interview with GQ as someone who had once been a “professional” drinker. “I enjoy wine very, very much, but I just ran it to the ground,” he said then. “I had to step away for a minute. And truthfully I could drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka. I was a professional. I was good.” Around that time, Pitt spent a year and a half attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, where he said he found a space to speak honestly about the parts of himself he did not like.

“You had all these men sitting around being open and honest in a way I have never heard,” Pitt later told The New York Times. “It was this safe space where there was little judgment, and therefore little judgment of yourself.” He added that it felt “really freeing” to reveal “the ugly sides” of himself, saying there was “great value in that.” Alcohol has also been intertwined with Pitt’s business life. During their marriage, he and Jolie purchased Château Miraval, the famed French estate and winery that has since become a major flashpoint in their ongoing legal battles.

Jolie has said in legal filings that her decision to sell her stake in the winery was influenced in part by Pitt’s “acknowledged problem of alcohol abuse on their family.” The documents stated that Jolie, believing Pitt would not share control of the winery or distribute profits, and uncomfortable remaining tied to a business connected to “painful and traumatic memories” for her and the children, decided she needed to sell her interest in Château Miraval and seek financial independence. For years, Pitt and Jolie were one of Hollywood’s most watched couples. They married quietly in August 2014 in the South of France after a long relationship and share three biological children: Shiloh, 20, born in 2006, and twins Vivienne and Knox, both 18, born in 2008.

The former couple also adopted Zahara, 21, and Pax, 22, while Pitt legally adopted Maddox, 25, whom Jolie had adopted before their relationship began. In the years since the split, the family divide has appeared to deepen publicly, with several of the children moving to remove Pitt from their names. Last month, Vivienne, 18, became the latest of the Jolie-Pitt children to take legal steps in that direction, filing a petition in Los Angeles County Superior Court to drop Pitt from her surname.

Court documents obtained by Our News Outlet list the reason for Vivienne’s name change as “personal,” with a hearing set for November 2. Zahara and Maddox have also published legal notices signaling their plans to remove Pitt from their last names, with both advertisements appearing in the Los Angeles Daily Journal during June and July. Shiloh, born Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, legally changed her name last year to Shiloh Jolie. Aside from Pax, Vivienne’s twin brother Knox is now the only other sibling who has not formally moved to drop the actor’s surname.

Pitt addressed the ‘family stuff’ during his Esquire interview, admitting he battled self-harm thoughts amid his estrangement from his children with his ex-wife Pitt explained how the pain he felt was so ‘oppressive’ and, while he would never act on it, he struggled to see a way out. He told Esquire UK: ‘I was never [thinking of harming myself] in any way. It just was not my makeup. In fact, if I have any afflictions, it’s probably being a congenital optimist. Which has helped many times, and it’s also gotten me – I’ve walked foolishly head-on into a Mack truck because of my optimism.

‘Or, as my forever-funny friend David Fincher will say, “Yeah, you see the glass as half full, but it’s half full of urine.” ‘Anyway, I’ve never been [thinking of killing myself] except for one little period. And in that one little period, I just thought – I just couldn’t – just didn’t see a way out. The pain was so oppressive that – I wasn’t going to act on this, but I could feel – I could feel the cold steel of the bullet in my head, and it felt like relief. ‘And I thought, “Oh, okay, now I understand” – I understand [self-harm], in the sense that it’s just relief. It’s just looking for relief from the pain. ‘But I also think we have incredible survival instincts. And for me, that immediately kicked in, but it was just…Yeah. Like, listen: This s**t ain’t easy…And you’re talking to a guy who won the lottery.’ When quizzed by the interviewer, Brad confirmed he was talking about ‘family stuff’. Now in his sixties, Brad shows no signs of slowing down. His next film, Heart of the Beast, a man-and-his-dog story, will be coming out this autumn followed by Quentin Tarantino’s The Adventures of Cliff Booth in which he stars as a Hollywood stuntman. He just wrapped up the thriller The Riders a few weeks ago. He is now happily in a relationship with jewellery executive Ines de Ramon, who resides with him in Los Angeles. But Brad says he longs to be in his fifties again. He told Esquire: ‘God, I want my fifties back…I would do more. Your fifties are just – man, anything that’s on your mind, go. Go attack it. Go attack it now.’