Brad Pitt ‘off the wagon’ after years of sobriety
Source: Instagram
Hollywood star Brad Pitt has revealed that after being sober for seven years he is now back off the wagon – “in a more restrained manner”.
The Oscar-winning actor quit drinking alcohol in 2016, reportedly after a drunken argument on a private plane with ex-wife Angelina Jolie as their relationship came to an end.
He spent time in Alcoholics Anonymous, and at an awards ceremony four years ago publicly credited fellow actor Bradley Cooper with helping on his journey, saying: “I got sober because of this guy, and every day has been happier ever since.”
But in a wide-ranging interview published this week by Esquire, the star of Twelve Monkeys, F1, Bullet Train and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood offered the reporter some wine and acknowledged it wasn’t just for guests.
“I was sober for seven years. And then I got back off the wagon,” Pitt said with a “little laugh”, before adding:
“In a more restrained manner. I got over-confident a couple times, went, ‘Yep, nope, not good for me’. Not in big quantities.”
The 62-year-old went on to say he could actually have “a few” wines.
“But I can’t have a lot. I have to be professional about it.”
The actor previously spoke about his sobriety with The New York Times in 2019, when he said he had taken “taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges”.
At the time, he said he was moved by the openness and honesty of others in his AA recovery group, which was made up mostly of men.
“It was this safe space where there was little judgment, and therefore little judgment of yourself.”
He also opened up about his struggles with alcohol in 2025 on the podcast Armchair Expert, hosted by Dax Shepard.
Earlier this year, Pitt was in Europe filming the long-awaited adaptation of Australian author Tim Winton’s 1994 Booker Prize-shortlisted novel The Riders, in which he plays the lead role of Fred Scully, while more recently he has been on the Isle of Man as a producer on a new film about the island’s famous motorcycle race.
In the Esquire interview, during which it’s pointed out he also drinks a grapefruit seltzer, Pitt referenced The Riders while discussing how much he admires the way Mare of Easttown star Kate Winslet commits to roles.
“I’ve tried to put in that level of commitment, certainly in Riders, this last thing I did, coming off watching Kate.”
The actor has been in the headlines recently after it was revealed that four of his children with Jolie have now taken legal steps to drop the Pitt surname. It has previously been reported that he now has almost no contact with his kids.
Pitt didn’t speak directly about his children in his latest interview, but acknowledged there had been a short period in his life when “the pain was so oppressive” he struggled with suicidal feelings.
Asked if such moments were related to “kid stuff”, he replied: “Family stuff. We could leave it at that.”
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