BRAD’S IN LOVE WITH JEN AGAIN
Newly sober Brad Pitt admits his biggest mistake was leaving Jennifer Aniston as he makes amends after years of boozing
He was desperate to make amends. As part of his ongoing journey of healing in the wake of his September split from Angelina Jolie — and bombshell admission that he’s been struggling with alcohol issues for years — Brad Pitt picked up the phone and called ex-wife Jennifer Aniston. In an emotional conversation, “Brad unburdened himself over all the hurt he’s caused her,” a source tells In Touch exclusively of the recent call. “He came across as genuinely sorry, and Jen was deeply touched. She cried happy tears after his grand mea culpa and told him she wanted to come through the phone and hug him right there.”
All the love came flooding back. Twelve years after Brad and Jen’s headline-making divorce — which famously came after he fell for Angelina on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith — Brad has found himself consumed with regret and longing to find happiness and joy again, following years of using weed and booze to numb his feelings. “Brad is openly questioning if he would have left Jen for Angie if he hadn’t been so dependent on alcohol and drugs back then,” says an insider. “Brad has realized with clarity that leaving Jen the way he did and getting romantically involved with Angie was a result of living in a haze.” Now, the source tells In Touch, “Brad is sober, making amends and in love with Jen again.”
Jen has forgiven Brad for what he did. “She graciously accepted Brad’s sincere apology when he took responsibility for the breakdown of their marriage,” says the insider. Over the years, she’s always tried to take the high road, even after both Brad, 53, and Angelina, 42, callously admitted in interviews that they fell in love while Jen, 48, and Brad were still married. “Jen’s harbored her fair share of animosity, too,” adds the source. “Yet her anger and resentment dissipated as Brad talked about overcoming his substance abuse, recovery and long-held guilt over the
pain he’d put her through. Not only did she accept his apology, but Jen opened up and told him how much his honest words meant to her. By the time they finished talking, a whole new era had begun for Brad and Jen.”
Getting sober has changed everything for Brad. Though he’s been forced to face feelings of overwhelming regret, he’s now more in touch with his emotions than ever before, says the source. He’s admitting it publicly, too. “I can’t remember a day since I got out of college when I wasn’t boozing or had a spliff, or something,” he admitted to GQ Style recently, confessing that he’s now sober after facing the hard truth: His drinking “became a problem,” and it helped ruin his marriage to Angelina. “I’m running from feelings. I’m really, really happy to be done with all of that…. You either deny [feelings] all of your life, or you answer them and evolve.”
Brad’s been saying he’s sorry a lot lately. “He’s been doing due diligence and following the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program, and he’s in the crucial apology phase of the steps,” explains the source. “He’s been going to the significant people that he feels he’s wronged over the
years while he was in the grips of his alcohol and drug haze and saying he’s sorry. It’s really been cathartic for him.” Though Brad’s a man of few words, adds the source, “through therapy and recovery he’s learned to express his feelings.”
His relationship with Jen has been thawing for the last year. As In Touch first reported, they initially reconnected last summer following the death of Jen’s mother, Nancy Dow, in May 2016. Jennifer and Nancy had a notoriously difficult relationship marked by periods of estrangement that Brad had once helped mend, albeit temporarily, during his and Jen’s five-year marriage. “They talked after he sent Jen a letter expressing his condolences,” explains the source. “Since then, Brad and Jen have kept up a regular phone and text relationship.” Jen has also been an unlikely source of support for Brad since Angelina turned his world upside down and waged a bitter custody battle against him (see sidebar) amid a child services investigation, which eventually found him innocent of any wrongdoing. “Jen,” says the source. “has been especially comforting.”
After all he’s been through, Brad can’t help but question his decision to settle down with Angelina in the first place. “Of course, his children [Maddox, 15, Pax, 13, Zahara, 12, Shiloh, 11, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 8] mean everything to him, and he wouldn’t trade the family part of his relationship with Angelina for anything in the world,” says the source. “But he now believes that leaving Jen for Angie was the biggest mistake of his life.”
Brad regrets the way he treated Jen in the latter part of their marriage, and not just because he’d let himself develop feelings for Angelina. In 2011, he told Parade he’d spent the ’90s “sitting on a couch, holding a joint, hiding out. It started feeling pathetic. It became very clear to me that I was intent on trying to find a movie about an interesting life, but I wasn’t living an interesting life myself. I think that my marriage [to Jen] had something to do with it. Trying to pretend the marriage was something that it wasn’t.”
He tried to backtrack at the time, quickly releasing a statement that made it clear he wasn’t blaming Jen for his issues. “The point I was trying to make is not that Jen was dull, but that I was becoming dull to myself — and that, I am responsible for,” he said. But Brad’s original comments “pretty much spelled out that he was stoned and bored throughout his marriage to Jen,” says the source. “When he began to fall for Angie on the set
The truth of it is, Brad never stopped loving Jen”
— A SOURCE
of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Brad was lost, emotionally avoiding Jen and his marriage and in a serious drinking and getting-high phase. He now feels that if he hadn’t been, he might have paid more attention to Jen and their relationship and might still be married to her.”
These days, he sees it all so clearly. “Brad’s really in a great place mentally and physically. He’s sober, in therapy and in touch with emotions and his true self like never before,” says the source. “Brad keeps telling friends that dropping the pot and alcohol for the first time since his college days has him seeing everything for what it is.” Of course he knows it’s too late to win back Jen, who is happily married to Justin Theroux.
It’s a painfully bittersweet time for Brad. He’s finding peace as he faces his demons and makes amends, but “as it stands, Brad is in love with his first wife again. And, like his fans, friends and loved ones, he feels he never should have broken up with Jen 12 years ago, says the source. “Jen will always be the love of Brad’s life.” ◼