Brad Pitt gets candid on AA trip after Angelina Jolie split: 'I needed rebooting'

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Brad Pitt is getting candid about his recovery journey following his split from Angelina Jolie in 2016.

Pitt, 61, and Jolie, 50, met while filming 2005’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith and were married between 2014 and 2016. The former partners share six children — Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh and twins Vivienne and Knox — and during their time together they were considered one of Hollywood’s most glamorous couples.

But the Oscar-winning actress filed for divorce on Sept. 19, 2016, after Pitt allegedly became violent towards her and their children while aboard a private flight back to Los Angeles from Europe.

In 2022, as the two battled over her sale of a stake she owned in Chateau Miraval, court documents obtained by Page Six, Variety and other media outlets shed light on that 2016 flight with Jolie alleging that the Bullet Train star “choked one of the children and struck another in the face.” 

“At one point, he poured beer on Jolie; at another, he poured beer and red wine on the children,” Jolie claimed.

Pitt was investigated for alleged child abuse over the plane incident, but authorities elected not to pursue charges.

After the incident, Pitt joined Alcoholics Anonymous, but his relationship with his children remains fractured (his daughter Shiloh no longer uses his last name).

“I was pretty much on my back, on my knees,” Pitt said of his decision to get help during a recent appearance on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast. “I was trying anything anyone threw at me. It was a particular difficult time. I needed rebooting. I needed to wake the f*** up, in some areas.”

Shepard, who is also in recovery, said recovering alcoholics “don’t come into AA because everything’s working out fantastic.”

“No,” Pitt replied. “That’s usually not the entry point.”

“It’s not the winner’s club,” Shepard continued. “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.’“

But even though the Oscar winner acknowledged he can be a “stubborn f***,” he said that he was able to see that he had to take action.

“When I’ve stepped in s***, I’m pretty good at taking responsibility for it and owning up to it,” Pitt said.

“Now it’s a quest to what can I do with this and how can I right this and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he added. “Be better, step up.”

Pitt, who is doing the press rounds for his upcoming racecar drama F1, said he “really grew to love” being around other recovering alcoholics.

“It gives you permission to go, ‘OK, I’m gonna step out on this edge and see what happens,'” he said. “I just thought it was incredible, men sharing their experiences with their foibles, their missteps, their wants, their aches and a lot of humour with it.”

Pitt previously told the New York Times that he spent a year and a half in AA after Jolie filed for divorce.

“I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges,” he told the outlet in 2019. “It was actually really freeing just to expose the ugly sides of yourself. There’s great value in that … It was this safe space where there was little judgment, and therefore little judgment of yourself.”

In the wake of his messy split from Jolie, which was finalized in December 2024 after an eight-year legal battle, Pitt has moved on with jewelry designer Ines de Ramon. The two have been dating since 2022, and Pitt calls her his girlfriend. 

The pair made their public debut during last summer’s British Grand Prix, but Pitt told GQ in a recent interview that their decision to lift the lid on their relationship wasn’t calculated.

“No, dude, it’s not that calculated,” Pitt said. “If you’re living, oh my God, how exhausting would that be? If you’re living with making those kinds of calculations? No, life just evolves. Relationships evolve.”

But after being in the spotlight for more than 30 years, Pitt said that he has come to terms with his every move making headlines.

“My personal life is always in the news. It’s been in the news for 30 years, bro. Or some version of my personal life, let’s put it that way,” he said.

mdaniell@postmedia.com