Brad Pitt is opening up about a major change in his life — revealing that after seven years of sobriety, he has started drinking alcohol again.
The 62-year-old Hollywood star made the surprising admission in a new Esquire interview published Monday, Aug. 10, explaining that he now allows himself to drink, but says he has learned the hard way that he needs to keep it under control.
“I was sober for seven years. And then I got back off the wagon,” Pitt said with a laugh.
The revelation came after Pitt offered interviewer Ryan D’Agostino a glass of wine. When D’Agostino asked whether Pitt kept alcohol around only for guests, the Oscar-winning actor admitted he drinks again himself.
These days, Pitt said he approaches alcohol in a “more restrained manner.”
But apparently, figuring out his limits took some trial and error.
“I got overconfident a couple times, went, Yep, nope, not good for me,” Pitt said. “Not in big quantities.”
Asked whether he can now enjoy a glass of wine, the Fight Club star said he can — and sometimes more than one.
“Yeah. Well . . . I can have a few. But I can’t have a lot,” Pitt explained. “I have to be professional about it.”
It is a dramatic change for Pitt, who spent years publicly discussing his decision to quit drinking following the collapse of his marriage to Angelina Jolie.
Pitt gave up alcohol in 2016 after he and Jolie, now 51, split following more than a decade together.
Jolie filed for divorce just days after an alleged confrontation between the couple aboard a private plane traveling from France to Los Angeles.
Pitt and Jolie share six children, and their bitter split would eventually lead to years of legal battles and public scrutiny.
Following the breakup, Pitt entered a 12-step recovery program and began speaking unusually candidly about his struggles with alcohol.
In a 2017 interview with GQ, Pitt admitted that for years he could barely remember a day after college when he wasn’t drinking, smoking marijuana or using something else.
He said he eventually stopped using everything except alcohol after starting a family, but came to realize that his drinking had become a serious problem.
“I was boozing too much,” Pitt admitted at the time.
When he spoke to GQ, Pitt had been sober for about six months and said the experience had brought his emotions back to the surface.
“I’m really happy it’s been half a year now, which is bittersweet, but I’ve got my feelings in my fingertips again,” he said.
Two years later, Pitt revealed even more about his recovery while speaking with The New York Times.
He said he spent roughly a year and a half attending 12-step meetings after Jolie filed for divorce and described the experience as surprisingly liberating.
“You had all these men sitting around being open and honest in a way I have never heard,” Pitt said.
He described the meetings as a safe place where people could talk openly without being judged.
“It was actually really freeing just to expose the ugly sides of yourself,” Pitt said. “There’s great value in that.”
Pitt later publicly credited fellow actor Bradley Cooper with helping him through his sobriety journey.
While accepting the Best Supporting Actor award at the 2020 National Board of Review Annual Awards Gala, Pitt thanked Cooper, who presented him with the honor.
“I got sober because of this guy and every day has been happier ever since,” Pitt said at the time.
Now, years after Pitt made sobriety such a public part of his personal comeback, the actor says his relationship with alcohol has changed again.
He is no longer completely abstaining — but insists he knows there is a line he cannot afford to cross.
For Pitt, drinking may be back on the table, but unlimited drinking clearly is not.
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