Brad is back!
How the superstar’s changed his life
When Brad Pitt made his way backstage after his emotional Oscar acceptance speech, he first gave presenter Regina King a long, warm hug before letting out an audible but quiet sigh. “Whoooo,” he said to no-one in particular, taking a long sip of water as dozens of well-wishers started to congratulate him. “I’m just trying to catch my breath!”
It’s been a whirlwind couple of months for Pitt, 56. For much of the past few years, in the wake of his difficult divorce from Angelina Jolie, he had rarely been seen in public, let alone on red carpets. But as acclaim poured in for his performance in Once upon a Time … in Hollywood, he embraced awards season
– and showed off the easygoing charisma fans first fell in love with back in 1991’s Thelma & Louise. “I wanted to bring my mum, but I couldn’t because any woman I stand next to they say I’m dating,” he joked at the Golden Globes, then opened his Screen Actors Guild Awards speech by saying he would put the statuette on his Tinder profile. But nabbing his first Oscar for acting (after four nominations) capped his remarkable comeback – and his voice caught as his speech took an emotional turn.
“Listen, I’m a bit gobsmacked,” he said from the stage, holding his Best Supporting Actor trophy. “I’m not one to look back, but this has made me do so. I think of my folks taking me to the drive-in to see Butch and Sundance. And loading up my car and moving out here. And to Geena [Davis] and Ridley [Scott] for giving me my first shot, to all the wonderful people I’ve met along the way to standing here now … once upon a time in Hollywood? Ain’t that the truth.” In an unusual moment of personal candour he added, “This is for my kids, who colour everything I do. I adore you.”
The exuberance of the night was a welcome change from a period fraught with challenges. In 2016, Pitt and Jolie, 44, split after two years of marriage and 12 years together. The pair, parents to Maddox, 18, Pax, 16, Zahara, 15, Shiloh, 13, and 11-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox,
continue to negotiate the financial terms of their divorce (a judge declared them officially single last spring), but the break-up took a toll on Pitt, who stepped back from the spotlight to work on himself. He admitted his drinking had contributed to his troubles at home. “I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privilege,” he told The New York Times. He later credited his long-sober friend Bradley Cooper with helping him quit: “Every day’s been happier ever since.”
Spending time in a men’s Alcoholics Anonymous group, Pitt began to turn his life around by focusing on his health and his kids, who have spent increasing time with him in LA. “Things are going much more smoothly, and he is infinitely happier,” says a long-time colleague. He returned to acting last year in Once upon a Time and the space thriller Ad Astra. “He works out, he eats healthy and attends therapy,” says an insider. “The divorce was a huge wake-up call to him. The current Brad is a much better person than the Brad a few years ago.” Adds a Hollywood insider: “He went through a lot of selfexamination, and he came out the other side. He’s more at peace.”
After nearly 30 years of stardom, he has most of Hollywood cheering him on. (At the
Vanity Fair Oscars afterparty, the room broke into applause when he arrived.) Raised in Springfield, Missouri, by his parents, William, the owner of a trucking company, and Jane, a school counsellor, Pitt studied journalism at the University of Missouri. But two weeks before graduation he decided to head to LA. “I didn’t graduate. All I had to do was hand in a term paper, but in my head I was done. I was going west,” he said. After guest roles on TV shows such as Dallas and Growing Pains, Pitt’s life changed forever when he was cast in Thelma & Louise in
“The current Brad is a much better person ... He’s more at peace”
a scene-stealing, six-pack-revealing role as a hitchhiking thief who sleeps with Geena Davis. Davis says she knew he was destined for stardom. “He just has ‘it’. I could tell when he was auditioning he was super talented,” she says, calling his resurgence “fabulous to see”.
Pitt often made headlines for his romances: Before Jolie, he was married to Jennifer Aniston from 2000 to 2005 and dated Gwyneth Paltrow and Juliette Lewis. He has remained friendly with Aniston and “jokes that dating in your 50s isn’t that easy”, says a source. “He has been on dates, but it’s not serious.” He’s much more serious about his work as an actor and producer (he won a Best Picture Oscar in 2014 for 12 Years a Slave) as well as his work building affordable green housing with his Make It Right Foundation and his latest pastime, sculpting. “I think it’s time to go disappear for a while and make stuff,” he said backstage at the Oscars. Will any of his kids follow in his footsteps? “I want them to follow their bliss, follow their passions, what they’re most interested in,” he said. “So sure, why not?”
After all, it’s a philosophy that’s turned out pretty well for Pitt himself. As he told WHO of his life, “I got friends, I got lovely kids, I like my coffee, I like my dogs. I’ve got no complaints.”
• Compiled by Elizabeth Leonard, Pernilla Cedenheim, Liz McNeil, Scott Huver and Reagan Alexander