Brad Pitt has revealed he is drinking again after seven years of sobriety, telling Esquire magazine he has gone "off the wagon" but is keeping his alcohol intake in check.
The admission came up organically during the interview when Pitt offered his interviewer, Ryan D'Agostino, a glass of wine, prompting a conversation about why the actor, long associated with a very public sobriety journey, had wine on hand at all. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Pitt responded with a small laugh before explaining, "No, I got—I was sober for seven years. And then I got back off the wagon. In a more restrained manner. I got overconfident a couple times, went, Yep, nope, not good for me. Not in big quantities."
Asked to clarify what that looks like in practice, the 62-year-old actor said, "I can have a few glasses of wine. But I can't have a lot. I have to be professional about it," according to both The Hollywood Reporter and Yahoo, which each carried the quote verbatim from the Esquire interview.
Pitt's history with sobriety stretches back nearly a decade. He first opened up about quitting drinking in a 2017 GQ interview, admitting he couldn't recall a single day since leaving college when he hadn't been drinking, smoking marijuana, or using something else. He told GQ he loved wine but had taken it too far. Two years later, in 2019, Pitt told The New York Times he had spent a year and a half attending an all-male Alcoholics Anonymous recovery group. In 2020, at the National Board of Review gala, Pitt publicly credited fellow actor Bradley Cooper with helping him get sober, a moment widely reported at the time.
Given that timeline, and Pitt's statement that he had been sober for seven years before returning to drinking, The Hollywood Reporter noted the math suggests the actor has actually been drinking again for at least a couple of years already, even though the disclosure is only now becoming public.
Vulture pointed out the timing is notable because Pitt discussed his sobriety journey on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast as recently as last summer, describing it in largely positive terms. The outlet also noted that Pitt's substance use had been tied, in earlier reporting, to an alleged explosive incident involving his ex-wife Angelina Jolie that became central to their years-long divorce proceedings. Vulture observed that much of Pitt's recent press has leaned on projecting an image of calm, ordinary normalcy — watching TV, following sports, spending time with his dogs — even as he now acknowledges a return to drinking that he insists is being handled with restraint and "professionalism."
Suicidal Thoughts Tied to Family Situation
The Esquire conversation, according to Yahoo, also included some of Pitt's most candid comments to date about his mental health. Discussing the emotional highs and lows of his life, Pitt said, "I was never suicidal in any way. It just was not my makeup. In fact, if I have any afflictions, it's probably being a congenital optimist."
He then qualified that statement, telling Esquire: "Anyway, I've never been suicidal 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." Pitt described the pain during that time as feeling "oppressive," recalling that he thought about "the cold steel of the bullet in my head," while making clear he never intended to act on the thought. He added that he now feels he can "understand" suicidal ideation, saying, "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."
When the interviewer asked whether those thoughts were connected to issues involving his children, Pitt responded simply, "Family stuff," nodding, and adding, "We could leave it at that," according to Yahoo.
Pitt shares six children with Jolie — sons Maddox, Pax and Knox, and daughters Zahara, Shiloh and Vivienne. The couple married and later divorced following a lengthy legal battle that has stretched on for years, with some disputes reportedly still unresolved. Yahoo noted that all six children have dropped Pitt's last name, either legally or informally, over the past several years, with the youngest turning 18 in July. Jolie has previously said she is keeping her primary residence in California because of a custody arrangement requiring her to remain near Pitt while their children were minors, but that she planned to move abroad, likely to Cambodia, once her twins reached adulthood.
Pitt did not elaborate further on what specifically he meant by "family stuff," leaving the connection between that period of despair and his relationship with his children largely unaddressed.
A New Role and a Familiar Character
The interview also touched on Pitt's upcoming work, including David Ayer's dog-centered film Heart of the Beast, which appears to have been the direct occasion for the Esquire profile. Pitt was additionally asked about reprising his role as stuntman Cliff Booth in Netflix's The Adventures of Cliff Booth, directed by David Fincher and written by Quentin Tarantino, who created the character for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, D'Agostino was shown the film's first 24 minutes and described the footage as a
