Brad Pitt Opens Up About Attending AA Meetings After Split from Angelina Jolie

Brad Pitt got vulnerable in a new interview about needing “rebooting” after his split from Angelina Jolie—which included attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings.

Speaking on the June 23 episode of Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast, the actor said he didn’t hesitate to open up in AA meetings because of how “desperate” he was in 2016, when he began attending meetings (which coincided with the time of his breakup with Jolie, with whom he shares six kids). Pitt and Shepard actually spoke about getting to know one another in said meetings, with Pitt calling them an “amazing thing.”

“I just thought it was incredible men sharing their experiences, their foibles, their missteps, their wants, their aches, and a lot of humor with it,” Pitt said on Monday’s episode (via People). “I thought it was a really special experience.”

Shepard—who has spoken openly about his struggles with sobriety—wondered if Pitt was “nervous” to talk with him in a public forum after meeting in AA, calling out the “really heightened honesty and vulnerability” of the meetings, but Pitt said he was “quite at ease.” 

Of beginning the meetings, “I was pretty much on my knees, and I was really open,” Pitt said. “I was trying anything and everyone. Anything anyone threw at me. It was a difficult time. I needed rebooting. I needed to wake the fuck up in some areas. And it just meant a lot to me.”

Though he called himself a “stubborn fuck,” Pitt also said that “When I’ve stepped in shit, I’m pretty good at taking responsibility for it and owning up to it. And now it’s a quest to, you know, ‘What do I do with this? How can I right this?’ And make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Eventually, AA meetings became “something I’d look forward to,” he added. He also began therapy, he said.

This isn’t the first time Pitt has shared that he attended AA meetings. The F1 star told The New York Times in 2019 that the experience “was actually really freeing to just expose the ugly sides of yourself. There’s a great value in that.”