Brad Pitt spent years presenting sobriety as one of the most important changes he made after his marriage to Angelina Jolie collapsed.
Now, things have taken an unexpected turn. The 62-year-old actor has shared that after seven years without alcohol, he is drinking again.
Pitt says he is handling alcohol differently now, but given what he has said about his past drinking and what was happening in his family when he quit, this admission means more than a typical celebrity confession.
Speaking to Esquire, Pitt acknowledged that his period of complete sobriety had ended. “I was sober for seven years. And then I got back off the wagon,” Pitt said. He quickly stressed that he now drinks “in a more restrained manner.”
Pitt also admitted that testing those boundaries has not always gone perfectly.
“I got overconfident a couple times,” he said, explaining that those experiences reminded him that consuming larger amounts of alcohol was “not good” for him. Pitt said he can have several glasses of wine but added, “I can’t have a lot. I have to be professional about it.”
That difference is important. Pitt is not saying he has gone back to the heavy drinking he talked about almost ten years ago.
Still, this news matters because alcohol was never a small issue in the story of his breakup with Angelina Jolie.
Brad Pitt’s Drinking Was Part of His Reckoning After Angelina Jolie Divorce
When Pitt first talked about quitting alcohol in 2017, he did not say it was just a casual choice to be healthier. He talked about having a much more serious problem with drinking.
In a remarkably candid interview with GQ, Pitt said he could barely remember a day after college when he was not drinking, smoking marijuana, or using something else. By the final year of his marriage, he acknowledged, “I was boozing too much. It’s just become a problem.”
When asked about alcohol specifically, Pitt said he had essentially pushed drinking as far as he could.
“I enjoy wine very, very much, but I just ran it to the ground,” he explained at the time.
Those remarks came after Jolie filed for divorce in September 2016, following an infamous confrontation aboard the family’s private plane.
Jolie later gave a much darker account of the flight in court documents, alleging that Pitt had been drinking and had become aggressive toward her and their family. Pitt denied the accusations of physical abuse, and authorities did not bring criminal charges following their investigations.
So, it would be too simple to say that alcohol alone ended the Pitt-Jolie marriage. Their divorce turned into an eight-year legal battle over custody, property, and Château Miraval.
Still, Pitt’s own words show that heavy drinking was not just something others added to the story. He himself called alcohol a serious problem when he was facing what had gone wrong in his life.
Pitt later turned to a 12-step recovery program, an experience he has described as an important part of getting his life back on track. He also singled out Bradley Cooper for support in 2020, telling the actor that since getting sober, “Every day has been happier ever since.”
Because of that history, his choice to drink again cannot be separated from the changes he talked about for years.
Brad Pitt’s Estrangement From His Children Raises an Uncomfortable Question
Another reason this news is getting attention is that Pitt’s relationship with his children seems more strained than ever.
Pitt and Jolie have six children: Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne. Several of them have publicly taken steps to remove their father’s last name.
Shiloh successfully changed her name to Shiloh Jolie in 2024 by filing to remove “Pitt” from her legal name. More recently, Maddox, Zahara, and Vivienne have also taken steps to use or legally adopt the Jolie surname.
A source previously told Us Weekly that Pitt’s greatest fear was becoming “permanently disconnected” from his children and that the growing distance had been extremely painful for him.
So, does Pitt’s return to drinking have anything to do with the family’s distance? Right now, there is no public evidence linking the two, and it would be wrong to suggest otherwise.
The family’s problems started long before Pitt’s recent admission, and none of his children have said that his drinking again caused their recent choices.
But it is easy to see why people are asking the question. For Pitt’s family, alcohol is tied to a painful past that goes back to his marriage ending. So, his choice to start drinking again comes with emotional weight that others might not have.
Interestingly, Pitt himself acknowledged serious emotional pain involving his family in the same Esquire interview. When the interviewer asked whether an especially difficult period in his life involved his children, Pitt would only call it “family stuff” and decline to elaborate.
That does not prove there is any link between his drinking and his children. However, it does show that the family split is still a major part of his life.
Brad Pitt’s Carefully Rebuilt Hollywood Image Could Face New Scrutiny
Pitt has done something that is not very common in Hollywood. Even with one of the most public celebrity divorces of his generation, years of tough allegations, and a strained relationship with some of his children, his career and public image have stayed strong.
Hollywood public-relations expert Mark Borkowski previously argued that Pitt’s ability to remain quiet about his private battles helped him. Borkowski said Pitt avoided the modern celebrity habit of constantly explaining personal trauma and instead “kept quiet.”
PR executive Evan Nierman made a similar point, saying Pitt’s silence “gave him control” because he allowed damaging headlines to pass without continually feeding them.
Sobriety was part of that bigger picture of personal recovery.
Pitt had acknowledged mistakes, talked about therapy, praised Alcoholics Anonymous, and portrayed the post-divorce years as a period in which he confronted behavior that needed to change.
That is why saying he is “back off the wagon” could make things more complicated, even if Pitt thinks he can now drink responsibly.
It naturally raises the question of whether the line he once thought was firm is now open to change.
Addiction and Recovery Experts Advise That Returning to Alcohol Is Serious
There is also a bigger issue here that goes beyond celebrity news. Pitt gave a slight smile when he called himself “back off the wagon,” but alcohol problems and recovery are serious. Science shows that returning to drinking is not always harmless or always a disaster.
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines relapse as returning to drinking after someone has stopped for a period of time. It additionally emphasizes that relapse is common and should not automatically be viewed as a complete failure of recovery.
The agency says stress can make it more likely for someone to start drinking again, and sometimes treatment or extra support is needed when that happens.
This does not mean Pitt has been diagnosed with alcohol use disorder now, or that his current drinking is dangerous. His personal medical details are not public.
But his own past comments make it easy to see why people are cautious. This is a man who once said alcohol had become “a problem,” described himself as someone who tended to run things “into the ground,” sought help through a 12-step program, and maintained sobriety for seven years.
Even Pitt’s new admission has a warning sign: he says he already got “overconfident” about drinking more than once before realizing he needed to set stricter limits.
Brad Pitt’s Next Chapter Will Be About More Than Whether He Drinks
In the end, people outside Pitt’s life cannot know if his choice to drink in moderation will become a problem.
Maybe he really has found a balance that works. Maybe his relationship with alcohol at 62 is very different from how it was in the last years of his marriage.
But there is a lot at stake with this decision. Pitt’s sobriety was tied to one of the biggest turning points in his life. It came after his marriage ended, before years of trying to rebuild his image, and became part of how he talked about being more honest and responsible.
Meanwhile, relationships with several of his children remain badly strained. That means his admission that he is no longer sober will always be seen in the context of a much bigger history than just a few glasses of wine.
Pitt may consider himself capable of drinking responsibly now. Given everything alcohol has meant in his past, people will naturally watch closely to see if this is just a controlled lifestyle change or the start of something much bigger.
