The Oscar-winning actor says he has returned to alcohol cautiously, acknowledging that excess remains dangerous territory for him.
Los Angeles, United States | August 2026
Brad Pitt has revealed that he is consuming alcohol again after maintaining sobriety for approximately seven years, offering an unusually candid account of his evolving relationship with drinking and the personal limits he says he must now carefully observe.
The 62-year-old actor made the disclosure during a new interview with Esquire. Pitt explained that he no longer maintains complete abstinence and occasionally drinks wine, but described his current consumption as significantly more restrained than during earlier periods of his life.
Pitt acknowledged that attempts to become more relaxed about alcohol have already tested those boundaries. He said there were occasions when he became overly confident about his ability to moderate his consumption and subsequently recognized that larger quantities were not compatible with his well-being.
His previous decision to stop drinking followed a turbulent period in his personal life surrounding his 2016 separation from Angelina Jolie. Pitt later participated in a 12-step recovery program and publicly discussed how the experience of listening to other men speak openly about addiction and vulnerability helped him confront his own behavior.
The actor has also credited Bradley Cooper with supporting him during his journey toward sobriety. Over the years, Pitt has spoken with increasing openness about substance use, emotional difficulties and the personal consequences of some of the most complicated periods of his life.
His latest comments do not present the return to drinking as a simple declaration that past difficulties have disappeared. Instead, Pitt describes an approach based on limits and continued awareness that alcohol can become problematic for him when those boundaries are exceeded.
The disclosure offers a more complicated picture than the conventional narrative of recovery as a perfectly linear process. For Pitt, seven years of sobriety may have ended, but the lessons learned during that period continue to shape the boundaries he now says he must respect.
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