It’s been eight months since Angelina Jolie filed for divorce from and Brad Pitt and Brad is finally opening up.
In an interview with GQ, Brad says that at one point his drinking got out of hand…but he’s been sober now for half a year.
via Page Six:
“I can’t remember a day since I got out of college when I wasn’t boozing or had a spliff, or something. Something. And you realize that a lot of it is, um — cigarettes, you know, pacifiers. And I’m running from feelings,” Pitt disclosed in a candid interview with GQ Style. “I’m really, really happy to be done with all of that. I mean I stopped everything except boozing when I started my family. But even this last year, you know — things I wasn’t dealing with. I was boozing too much. It’s just become a problem. And I’m really happy it’s been half a year now, which is bittersweet, but I’ve got my feelings in my fingertips again. I think that’s part of the human challenge: You either deny them all of your life or you answer them and evolve.”
Though Pitt could once “drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka,” he has since changed his beverage of choice.
“Cranberry juice and fizzy water,” he said. “I’ve got the cleanest urinary tract in all of L.A., I guarantee you! But the terrible thing is I tend to run things into the ground. That’s why I’ve got to make something so calamitous. I’ve got to run it off a cliff.”
As Pitt, 53, and Jolie, 41, go through divorce proceedings, his focus remains on his family.
“People on their deathbeds don’t talk about what they obtained or were awarded. They talk about their loved ones or their regrets — that seems to be the menu,” Pitt said. “I say that as someone who’s let the work take me away. Kids are so delicate. They absorb everything. They need to have their hand held and things explained. They need to be listened to. When I get in that busy work mode, I’m not hearing. I want to be better at that.”
Jolie pulled the plug on her two-year marriage to Pitt in September after a total of 12 years together. She filed for divorce five days after an alleged dispute between Pitt and their 15-year-old son, Maddox, aboard the family’s private jet, which resulted in an investigation by the FBI.
“I was really on my back and chained to a system when Child Services was called. And you know, after that, we’ve been able to work together to sort this out,” he explained. “We’re both doing our best. I heard one lawyer say, ‘No one wins in court — it’s just a matter of who gets hurt worse.’ And it seems to be true, you spend a year just focused on building a case to prove your point and why you’re right and why they’re wrong, and it’s just an investment in vitriolic hatred. I just refuse. And fortunately my partner in this agrees. It’s just very, very jarring for the kids, to suddenly have their family ripped apart.”
While Pitt was cleared of charges, the well-being of his six children — sons Maddox, Pax, 13, and Knox, 8, as well as daughters Zahara, 12, Shiloh, 10, and Vivienne, 8 — is of the utmost priority.
“There’s a lot to tell them because there’s understanding the future, there’s understanding the immediate moment and why we’re at this point, and then it brings up a lot of issues from the past that we haven’t talked about. So our focus is that everyone comes out stronger and better people — there is no other outcome,” Pitt said.
Following the split, Pitt crashed at a friend’s in Santa Monica, deeming the Hollywood Hills home he’s lived in since 1994 “too sad” a place to be. Though he has since returned, the house is immensely different than before.
“This house was always chaotic and crazy, voices and bangs coming from everywhere, and then, as you see, there are days like this: very … very solemn,” he shared.
It sounds like Brad’s really going through it…
