Brad Pitt reveals alcoholism battle and says he needed to "wake the f*** up"
The Oscar-winning star of films such as Bullet Train, F1: The Movie and Oceans Eleven revealed his efforts to stop boozing on the Armchair Expert podcast on Monday and didn't hold back.
Brad Pitt has opened up to reveal his devastating battle with alcoholism and the lengths he went to in order to get sober.
The Oscar-winning star of films such as Bullet Train, F1: The Movie and Oceans Eleven revealed his efforts to stop boozing on the Armchair Expert podcast on Monday and didn't hold back.
Pitt, 61, says he reached out to everyone he knew for help and finally joined Alcoholics Anonymous despite initial nerves.
He said: "I was pretty much on my knees, and I was really open. I was trying anything and everyone. Anything anyone threw at me. It was a difficult time. I needed rebooting.'
Speaking about attending his first AA meeting, Pitt admitted he was pretty "shy" a first.
"I'm generally a bit shy in any situation at first," the actor admitted. "But I don't know, I just remember getting my arms around it pretty quickly and it became a thing for me. It was really like something I'd look forward to."
After a friend "assured" him that the group was a "safe place" Pitt said he felt more comfortable opening up. And at that point in his life, he was ready to do just that.
"I am a stubborn f--k, but when I've stepped in s--t, I'm pretty good at taking responsibility for it and owning up to it, and now it's a quest to… what I do with this and how do I right this and make sure this doesn't happen again. So I was really opening to that," the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood star shared.
Pitt described the experience of attending AA meetings as a positive one.
"I just thought it was just incredible men sharing their experiences, their foibles, their missteps, their wants, their aches, and a lot of humour with it," Pitt said. 'I thought it was a really special experience."
Pitt previously opened up about getting sober following his 2016 split from Angelina Jolie.
In a 2019 interview with the New York Times, he revealed that the divorce was the wake-up call he needed.
"I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges," he told NYT at the time. "You had all these men sitting around being open and honest in a way I have never heard. It was this safe space where there was little judgment, and therefore little judgment of yourself."
Having recently completed his divorce from Jolie, Pitt is currently dating Ines de Ramon, 32.
Us Weekly also reported that Pitt is still estranged from most of his six children with Angelina - Maddox, 23, Pax, 21, Zahara, 20, Shiloh, 19, and 16-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne.
Sources said that he had 'made several efforts to reconnect with his kids,' but he was only able to regularly spend time with the twins, as they are his only children who are still affected by his and Angelina's custody agreement because they are minors.
His relationships with the older four all said to be 'strained'.
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