Brad Pitt opens up about his struggles with addiction and journey through Alcoholics Anonymous
In a searingly honest podcast interview, Brad Pitt has opened up about his struggles with addiction and his journey through Alcoholics Anonymous after the breakdown of his marriage to Angelina Jolie.
Brad Pitt has opened up about his struggles with addiction and his journey through Alcoholics Anonymous after the breakdown of his marriage to Angelina Jolie.
The 61-year-old discussed the aftermath of the end of his second marriage on the new episode of the Armchair Expert podcast, hosted by Dax Shepard, 50, with the F1 star saying the turbulent time pushed him to seek help, leading him to join AA and confront years of substance dependency.
He said: “I was pretty much on my knees… I needed to wake the f*** up in some areas.
“I was really open to… I was trying anything anyone threw at me. It was a difficult time. I needed rebooting.”
While speaking to Dax, who has publicly discussed his own sobriety journey and relapse after 16 years, Brad recalled feeling nervous when first attending AA.
The actor, who split from Angelina in 2016, added: “It gives you permission to go, ‘OK, I’m gonna step out on this edge and see what happens’.
“And then I really grew to love it.”
Brad also praised Dax for his honesty, calling him “so f***** honest” and likening him to “an elder statesman” of the group.
He added: “Dax was usually near the end because he’s been there awhile.
“I just thought it was incredible – men sharing their experiences with their foibles, their missteps, their wants, their aches, and a lot of humor with it.”
Raised in Missouri after being born in Oklahoma, Brad reflected on the environment he grew up in. “Everything is great,” was the mantra of the men around him, he said – a culture that left little room for emotional openness.
In a 2019 interview with The New York Times, Brad previously said AA offered him a safe, judgment-free space.
“It was actually really freeing just to expose the ugly sides of yourself,” he said.
He also explained the group helped him finally “revoke (his) drinking privileges.”
Brad also acknowledged alcohol was not the only substance he had used to cope with fame and pressure.
“In the ’90s, all that attention really threw me,” he said, adding: “I really became a bit of a hermit and just bonged myself into oblivion.”
In 2020, Brad publicly credited Bradley Cooper, 49, with helping him to overcome his addiction issues. While accepting a Best Supporting Actor award from Bradley at the National Board of Review gala, Brad said Cooper helped him “get sober” and that “every day has been happier ever since”.
Brad’s decision to get sober came in the wake of his split from Angelina, 49, with whom he shares six children: Maddox, 23, Pax, 21, Zahara, 20, Shiloh, 19, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 16.
The former couple, who met on the set of Mr. Mrs. Smith in 2005 and married in 2014, were embroiled in a lengthy legal dispute after Angelina filed for divorce in 2016.
It was a process finally concluded in December 2024, following Brad’s 2022 lawsuit over her sale of her share in their Château Miraval estate.
Brad is currently in a relationship with 34-year-old jewellery executive Ines de Ramon, who resides with him in Los Angeles, while Angelina is thought to be single.
