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As a news consumer, I’m not exactly a tough nut for the news feed algorithm to crack. Pretty much any story about sobriety or addiction recovery makes it to the top of my feed and—proving that Pavlov was really on to something—I click every time. Thus, the news that Brad Pitt told an Esquire reporter that he was “back off the wagon” after seven years of sobriety reached me with all the subtlety of a tsunami.
Initially, I didn’t want to write about it. In general, I don’t speculate about other people’s recovery. If I know one thing in this world, it’s that recovery is a non-linear process that looks different for everyone. I also think it’s gross when people talk about celebrities’ recovery (or lack thereof) like it’s a parasocial spectator sport. When the kind folks at ms.now asked me if I would be interested in writing something about it, my brain immediately jumped to all the reasons I shouldn’t.
Then, I told the editors I’d do it. I thought it was worth writing for a few reasons. As the published piece suggests, whether or not a person can safely go back to drinking after a period of sobriety is a question I am asked all the time (for more on that, read the ms.now piece or this AASL one). Still, I could answer that question without mentioning Pitt at all. Some in the recovery space have taken the position that writing such a piece is “piling on” the actor when his alcohol use is “none of our business.”
Ninety-nine percent of the time, that would be my take, too. But I think Pitt falls into the 1%. The whole issue also raises an interesting question—one I don’t necessarily have good answers to—about the reputation-laundering potential of recovery narratives. But to understand any of this, you need to know about allegations his ex-wife, Angelina Jolie, made after a plane trip in 2016, and the crisis PR manager Pitt hired after those allegations became public.
According to court documents reviewed by Rolling Stone, Puck News, and other outlets, Jolie alleges that Pitt became violent towards her and their children on a private plane in 2016. He was reportedly very intoxicated at the time and, to put it mildly, scared the shit out of his family. So much so that Jolie filed divorce papers days after the flight. Perhaps still not our business, though a public figure (allegedly) being physically abusive towards his family is a different ballgame than merely speculating about his substance use—even if his substance use was the catalyst.
Pitt denies the allegations and no charges were ultimately filed, but he publicly acknowledges that he was drinking too much during his marriage and that doing so contributed to his divorce. “I was boozing too much,” he told GQ in 2017. “Truthfully, I could drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka. I was a professional.* I was good.”
In 2023, after stories broke about the alleged details of what happened on the flight, Pitt hired the same PR manager Johnny Depp used during his court battles with Amber Heard, Matthew Hiltzik. In a story about the crisis manager to the stars, The Observer reported that Hiltzik crafted Pitt’s “divorce narrative” to emphasize “contrition and sobriety over scandal.”
Two things can be true
I don’t mean to suggest that Pitt wasn’t contrite and sober following his divorce—how would I know? He probably was. But two things can be true: Pitt could be genuinely contrite and sober after his divorce, and it could be really important for his reputation (and thus his career) for the whole world to know that he is contrite and sober.
Last year, Pitt went on famous sober guy Dax Shepard’s podcast, Armchair Expert, which has an estimated 20 million monthly listeners—and talked about coming into recovery meetings “desperate,” “on his knees,” and needing to “wake the fuck up in some areas.”
I’m not doubting the veracity of his statements. But if—in the wake of an alleged alcohol-related abuse scandal—a celebrity hires a PR person to help get the word out about his sobriety, openly discusses that sobriety in The New York Times, award speeches, and on arguably the biggest recovery-related podcast on the planet before casually mentioning to a reporter on the record that he’s drinking again, is the takeaway really that we’re just nosy voyeurs who can’t mind our own business? Weren’t we supposed to have feelings about his sobriety? Isn’t that why he was talking about it so publicly in the first place?
Here’s where we get to the thorny question I don’t know how to answer: How do we give people the benefit of the doubt, respect how individual the recovery process can be, allow room for growth and redemption while also acknowledging that an actor’s reputation is directly connected to their livelihood and that addiction recovery narratives can help launder a celebrity’s reputation after allegations of abuse?
The thing is, I don’t actually care whether or not Brad Pitt drinks. I genuinely hope that he can do it in a way I never could. He also shouldn’t have to talk about anything he doesn’t want to. But he really seemed to want to talk about sobriety—the thing he said turned him from a “desperate” wreck to “happier every day.”
Quitting drinking isn’t always a big deal, but for Pitt it was. He’s the one who characterized himself and his relationship to alcohol thusly: “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.”
I hope that’s no longer true for him, but after seven years of a high-profile addiction-to-sobriety narrative, it’s certainly fair to wonder about it. Because the only reason I’m even thinking about cliffs is that Pitt told us how compelled he feels to run off of them.
*Pitt also used “professional” to describe his drinking in the new Esquire profile; this time referring not to drinking a Russian under the table, but drinking in moderation.
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As a sober person (just hit 5 years!), I have also been thinking and thinking and THINKING about this Brad Pitt story, and as someone who also described their drinking as "more of a profession than a hobby," I really just can't stop. Maybe he's just feeling this out, maybe now that the divorce dust has settled he's rethinking, who knows? But yeah. Can't stop thinking about this story.
As recovering people I think it is important to understand and be aware of "Self-deception". We are ALL prone to it. It is the most incidious part of this disease/mental health condition. Self justification is subtle and ever present. Our job is to see it name it and be empathetic to the person who is self deceived. we can all fall for it. Love and tolerance.