Actor Brad Pitt opened up about his experience of recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous following his messy 2016 split from actress Angelina Jolie.
Appearing on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, Pitt opened up about his sobriety and getting to know Shepard in AA meetings.
“I was pretty much on my back, on my knees. I was really open. I was trying anything anyone threw at me,” Pitt said about first attending AA. “It was a particular difficult time. I needed rebooting. I needed to wake the f**k up in some areas.”
“You don’t come into AA because everything’s working out fantastic,” Shepard said.
“No,” Pitt replied. “That’s usually not the entry point.”
“It’s not the winner’s club,” Shepard added. “Your hair has gotta be on fire before you go like, ‘Yeah, I’ll go hang with a bunch of dudes and talk about emotions.’ “
Brad Pitt's previous attempts to open up about sobriety
Speaking to the New York Times in 2019 about the difficult time that followed his split from the mother of his six children, Pitt said only, “I had family stuff going on…We’ll leave it at that.”
The 11 year relationship reportedly came to an end after arguments over Pitt’s drinking. “I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges,” he shared.
After speaking on breaking away from the old school masculinity practised by his father, Pitt shared that AA had been a deeply healing experience free of judgment.
“You had all these men sitting around being open and honest in a way I have never heard,” Pitt said. “It was this safe space where there was little judgment, and therefore little judgment of yourself.”
“It was actually really freeing just to expose the ugly sides of yourself,” he said. “There’s great value in that.”
Pitt admitted in his recent interview that he was “admonished” for the New York Times interview, as he failed to maintain anonymity. Both actors shared that opening up about their experience of addiction had helped inspire fans with similar struggles.