Brad Pitt is drinking again after seven years sober

Brad Pitt has made his most personal admission in years — telling Esquire in an interview published on 10 August that he is no longer sober and that he felt suicidal at one point over what he described as "family stuff." It is the kind of raw candour you rarely get from one of the biggest film stars on the planet, and it lands hard.

Speaking to Esquire, Pitt confirmed his seven-year run of sobriety is behind him — though he was quick to stress he is drinking "in a more restrained manner." He says he can have a few glasses of wine now, but adds that he "can't have a lot," insisting he has to be "professional about it."

Pitt originally gave up drinking in 2016, following his split from ex-wife Angelina Jolie. He announced in 2019 that he had spent a year and a half in Alcoholics Anonymous after Jolie filed for divorce. The road back to alcohol, it seems, has been a gradual and self-aware one — not a dramatic fall from grace, but a conscious recalibration of his limits.

As recently as June 2025, Pitt appeared on Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast and reflected on his early days in AA. "I was pretty much on my knees, and I was really open," he said. It was a men's group, he explained — "incredible men sharing their experiences, their foibles, their missteps, their wants, their aches and a lot of humour with it."

Pitt has also publicly credited his friend Bradley Cooper for his sobriety, telling the crowd at the 2020 National Board of Review Annual Awards Gala: "I got sober because of this guy and every day's been happier ever since."

Cooper, himself long sober, was the one presenting Pitt with his Best Supporting Actor award that evening — a moment that became one of the more unexpectedly moving scenes in recent awards history.

The Esquire piece goes well beyond the question of alcohol. Pitt also revealed that he had felt suicidal at one point, connecting those feelings to what he called "family stuff." Elsewhere in the interview, he opened up about the death of his mother, who died in August 2025. He did not elaborate at length on the family legal battles — though the years-long divorce and custody disputes with Angelina Jolie have played out with bruising public intensity since 2016, only concluding in December 2024.

On grief, Pitt offered a quietly striking image: rather than climbing out of darkness, he thought of it as going through it — trying and trying until, one day, things felt "a little sunnier." It is the language of someone who has sat inside pain rather than outrun it, and it resonates far beyond celebrity.

All of this arrives as Pitt prepares for one of his biggest films in years. In September, he will star in Heart of the Beast, on which he is also a producer. He plays Special Forces Officer James Belmont, stranded in the Alaskan wilderness with his combat dog Odin. Directed by David Ayer and written by Cameron Alexander, the film also stars J.K. Simmons and Anna Lambe, and arrives in cinemas on 25 September 2026. It will be interesting to see whether this interview — one of the most personal of his career — serves as the defining backdrop to that release.

If nothing else, Pitt has reminded us that behind even the most gilded life, the work of just getting through each day can be the hardest job of all.

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide or substance use, contact the Samaritans on 116 123 (free, 24/7) or visit samaritans.org.