He’s shorter than you think. Slighter in build too, which is often the case with leading men. I mention this only because women who run into him often mention it first when I ask about their initial impression. They call to frantically relay bumping into him backstage, in a greenroom of whatever late-night show they’re on.
“Brad Pitt is here! But OMG way shorter than I realized!”
Current headlines want us aware that he’s drinking again. Frankly, I find it hilarious as PR strategy—to announce a famous man’s return to the wagon.
Selfishly, I do prefer Brad as refined wine aficionado. So, apparently, does Conor McGregor. When he got wind of Brad’s decision to drink again, he joined in unity, tweeting that he too would drink to that. McGregor sent his best wishes to Pitt, adding promo for a bevy containing 4.2 percent alcohol.
Brad in this latest article appears quite candid about just how dark things became in the aftermath of his marriage. In this new Esquire interview he admits there was a period when he struggled to see a way forward.
“I’ve never been suicidal except for one little period,” he said. “I just didn’t see a way out.” He described the pain at the time as “so oppressive,” though he made clear he never intended to act on those thoughts.
He also revealed that after seven years of sobriety, he has started drinking again. “I was sober for seven years. And then I got back off the wagon.”
These days, he says, he drinks “in a more restrained manner,” having learned fairly quickly that overdoing it is still “not good for me.”
Angelina has also been opening up more as well. “I think my fighting spirit is finally back,” she recently told Variety.
“I lost it for a bit. I got kind of taken down a little bit.”
“Life has broken me a little,” she confessed.
She spoke about her daughters encouraging her to “live again” and “be free again.”
Which brings us back to Brad. Typically, I’m not inclined to find conventionally handsome men intriguing, but Brad is different. Unlike many his age and same level of fame, he’s never been a recluse. It seems like he likes to get out and hang with the public.
Years ago, he showed up at the Born Free motorcycle event with two women, without security, and mingled happily with straggly Orange County bikers, taking photos and talking with fans and non-fans alike. We all saw the selfies. Him in all white, holding a red Solo cup, looking almost like he belonged there.
More recently, I ran into a woman who works in PR, close to his current girlfriend, who shared details about their relationship as it stands now, as well as a great story about their first date. But we get to that below the paywall.
Before we dive into present-day fodder: his teenage kids ditching his last name, the infamous intoxicated plane ordeal, his ex-wife admitting their divorce ruined her, Brad returning to drinking, the weird fashion choices, and what might be one of the best facelifts in Hollywood, I want to briefly revisit the glory days of Brangelina. We may have lovingly tracked the relationships of all his former flames, but the days with Angelina were something special. Their union offered us a dose of idealized Hollywood glamour. This era’s version of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. High glam, nonstop travel, a brood of beautiful mixed children, birthed and adopted, mounting drama, and later, legal wars over top-quality French rosé. All of it framed by enchanting DNA: two of the most attractive people of the modern age, still sparring.
Brad and Angie met while filming Mr. & Mrs. Smith in 2004, while he was still married to Jennifer Aniston. I remember reading that he had signed on to film with Angie and thinking Jen had better brace herself for what was coming.
As an unspoken rule: Women like Angelina are not expected to adhere to the moral laws of the universe. Blessed by the gods and attractive beyond measure, they exist as lawless creatures of nature who are prone to casual seduction. We can’t even fault them for it. I’ve always credited Angelina’s interest in philanthropy. Consider if we were as gorgeous. We might idle the hours admiring our reflection, disinterested in societal expectations, occasionally stepping out to steal someone’s husband as sport, because the privilege that exceptional beauty grants opens a universe unknown to those of us resigned to mediocre appeal.
She is unarguably one of the world’s most beautiful women and unfortunately, beautiful women are allowed to be considerably crazier than the rest. It’s why she can kiss her brother on the mouth, wear her boyfriend’s blood in vials around her neck, and then seamlessly evolve into whatever she desires without much judgment or scrutiny.
As spectators, we’re just content to watch.
Again, I don’t make the rules, God does. Clearly he was in a good mood when he created Jon Voight’s daughter. He carved for her features women of common design would later pay big money to replicate. A face for the ages: eyes like an ancient minx, subtly sloped nose, perfect bone structure, distractingly full lips, luxurious locks, and a flicker of deviant sexual charisma apparent in any expression. The kind of woman who can easily attract both sexes.
When the first images of her and Brad filming on location surfaced, her looking smitten with him and his freshly shaven head, we all knew where it was headed. In grainy tabloid shots from the Mr. & Mrs. Smith set, they openly flirted: her face flushed in a white two-piece, hair pinned like a Pre-Raphaelite muse, smiling too much when filming cut. Him sweaty, surrounded by empty beer bottles scattered across a cafe table, his arm around her waist on their way out.
There was drinking and dancing in exotic locations during the off hours playing out in real time as filming progressed.
Though both initially denied an affair, Pitt and Aniston separated in early 2005. By that summer, Pitt and Jolie were photographed together on a magazine cover. Who can forget the shock of seeing them in that moody W spread cast as a suburban family riddled by scenes of sex and rage just as the scandal around their relationship exploded?
We were all aghast. Collectively, aghast.
But the photos, they were SO good…
Aniston later admitted how much it hurt to see them styled in this spread, adding that Brad was clearly “missing a sensitivity chip.”
“Am I lonely? Yes. Am I upset? Yes. Am I confused? Yes. Do I have my days when I’ve thrown a little pity party for myself? Absolutely. But I’m also doing really well.”
Holed up in her Malibu, Calif., bungalow, the 36-year-old actress says the media coverage and tabloid rumors have been hard to deal with — especially reports that she didn’t want to start a family.
“A man divorcing would never be accused of choosing career over children,” she says. “I’ve never in my life said I didn’t want children. I did and I do and I will!”
Aniston filed for divorce in March, citing irreconcilable differences after 4 1/2 years of marriage. The couple separated in January.
Aniston says she was aware of Pitt’s attraction to Angelina Jolie, his “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” co-star, but doesn’t blame their split on her.
“It’s just complicated,” Aniston says. “There are all these levels of growth — and when you stop growing together, that’s when the problems happen.”
But when pictures showing Pitt and Jolie together with her 3-year-old son, Maddox, on a beach in Africa were published, the former “Friends” star says, “the world was shocked and I was shocked.”
She was also hurt by a fashion spread in W magazine — a concept of Pitt’s — that showed the actor and Jolie as a 1960’s-style married couple.
“There’s a sensitivity chip that’s missing,” Aniston says of Pitt.
Says Aniston: “I just don’t know what happened. ... I feel as if I’m trying to scrounge around and pick up the pieces in the midst of this media circus.”
Otherwise refusing to talk badly of Pitt, the actress says she doesn’t want to mimic the bitterness of her parents’ divorce.
“I love Brad; I really love him. I will love him for the rest of my life,” says Aniston. “I don’t regret any of it, and I’m not going to beat myself up about it.”
“The sad thing, for me, is the way it’s been reduced to a Hollywood cliche — or maybe it’s just a human cliche.”
Another false report, Aniston says, is her relationship with Vince Vaughn, her co-star in the upcoming movie “The Break Up.”
“I like a lot of people, but I’m sooo not ‘in like’ with anybody.”
Aniston also hasn’t lost her sense of humor. On Pitt’s recently dyed blond hair, she says, “Billy Idol called — he wants his look back.”
Gradually, the public came to forgive the affair even though we held a soft spot for Jen, who remained notably stoic throughout.
Meanwhile, Brangelina grew into a full-blown cultural phenomenon. They traveled constantly and built an international family of six children, three adopted and three biological. Humanitarian work, refugee camps, international adoptions, sprawling estates. Their daughter Shiloh’s first photographs sold for millions in 2006, with the proceeds donated to charity. Later came the intimate photographs Brad took of Angelina after the birth of their twins: Angelina in a cotton nightgown, nursing the newborns, the domestic life of the world’s most glamorous couple presented as something almost startlingly ordinary.
For years, they seemed to exist in their own strange category of fame: impossibly beautiful, globally mobile, almost mythological.
They finally married in 2014 at Château Miraval at their estate in France with their children involved in the ceremony. Remember her dress—embroidered with the kids’ art scribbles? Perfectly quirky.
We ate it up.
Two years later, it all spectacularly unraveled.
On September 14, 2016, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were flying with their six children from France back to California on a private plane when something went very wrong. By Jolie’s account to the FBI, Pitt had been drinking, and tensions were already high. About 90 minutes into the flight, she says he asked her to come to the back of the plane, away from the kids, where an argument escalated. Jolie alleged that Pitt grabbed and shook her, pushed her against the wall, and punched the ceiling of the plane.
At some point, one of their children asked if she was okay. According to Jolie, Pitt responded: “No, mommy’s not ok. She’s ruining this family. She’s crazy.”
One of the kids reportedly fired back: “It’s not her, it’s you.”
Jolie described hours of chaos that followed. More drinking. Arguments involving the children. Wine and beer allegedly spilled or poured. Another confrontation as the plane prepared to land. Jolie later told investigators the family was “shell shocked.”
Pitt’s version has always remained considerably different. He acknowledged drinking and arguing with his son but denied physically harming him. A source describing his position at the time said: “Brad may have been drinking, and admits that he yelled at his son, but he insists he did not hit him or attempt to harm him.”
Pitt later spoke much more candidly about his drinking during that period. “Truthfully I could drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka,” he told GQ in 2017. “I was a professional. I was good.”
The FBI reviewed the incident and ultimately declined to pursue charges. Child-welfare authorities also investigated. Brad was not charged with child abuse.
Whatever happened inside that plane effectively marked the end of Brangelina.
Six days later, Angelina Jolie filed for divorce. I recall shedding a tear at the gas station when I read the news.
What followed was an extraordinarily long and bitter legal battle over custody, property, and Miraval. In the years since, several of their children have publicly distanced themselves from the Pitt name. Their divorce was ultimately finalized in December 2024, more than eight years after Jolie first filed.
In the end, as much as I miss them as Hollywood’s most stunning couple, it’s good to see they’ve both moved on.
As for who’s to blame: insight is oddly balanced. My sources are sufficiently divided so I don’t have a solid opinion on either party. For the sake of gossip (to ease the pain of tracking current murder trials) below is what I’ve heard lately: some side with Brad. Others swear Angelina is the real hero in this tragic fallout.
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