Why Brad Pitt is back on the booze... a decades-long problem, Alcoholics Anonymous, and his children turning on him - and the pact he's hoping will stop him relapsing

Brad Pitt once claimed he could ‘drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka’.

Although self-reflective at the time, it was a particularly unsettling statement, given that it came in 2017 just a year after the terrifying account of his drunken rage on board a private flight – which ultimately cost him his marriage and his family.

So, when Pitt, seven years sober, revealed this week that he was back on the booze, eyebrows were raised.

Is it possible for him to return to drinking sensibly?

Pitt, 62, seems to think so.

‘I was sober for seven years. And then I got back off the wagon,’ he told Esquire magazine, apparently even ‘offering a little laugh’, according to the interviewer.

He insisted that he now drinks ‘in a more restrained manner’, describing how he ‘got over-confident a couple times, went, “Yep, nope, not good for me.” Not in big quantities.’

He clarified that he can ‘have a few’ glasses of wine, but no more. ‘I have to be professional about it.’

This week a source close to Pitt's camp told the Daily Mail that the star’s return to drinking was a ‘gradual process in recent years’, as Pitt slowly figured out ‘how he felt comfortable and what he felt was appropriate for him’.

‘Friends had become more aware of it recently,’ said the insider who added he drinks with pals and his girlfriend of four years, Ines de Ramon.

It’s de Ramon, according to sources, who stops Pitt from having one too many and succumbing to the pull of addiction.

Pitt has been dating jewellery executive de Ramon, 33, since late 2022, with the elusive pair moving in together in Los Angeles before making their red-carpet debut at the Venice Film Festival in 2024.

It was only in July this year that the New Jersey native made her romance Instagram official, sharing several snaps of them at Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding at New York’s Madison Square Garden – where we are told Pitt was drinking.

‘Ines smokes and likes a glass of wine or two, especially at dinner,’ said a source close to Pitt’s production company Plan B Entertainment.

‘She’s never set boundaries with Brad, but until recently he’s managed to hold off alcohol. He’s made a pact with Ines that she won’t let his habit get out of control.

‘Brad has had one of the most stressful years of his life. On top of dealing with what seemed like a never-ending divorce, he’s found it very difficult to get over his mother’s death.

‘Ines understands the strain the past year has been for him. She’s by his side to make sure he doesn’t overdo it.’

But one person who has already raised doubts is ex-wife Angelina Jolie, who is reportedly ‘not surprised’ by Pitt’s return to drinking.

During their infamous eight-year divorce battle Jolie filed court papers accusing Pitt of drunkenly attacking her and some of their children during an alleged altercation on a private jet back in September 2016.

Jolie accused her then-husband of ‘physically abusing’ their six children – Maddox, then 15, Pax, 12, Zahara, 11, Shiloh, ten, and twins Vivienne and Knox, eight – onboard.

FBI documents made public in 2022 detailed the extent of the terrifying ordeal.

They claimed Pitt ‘lunged’ at one of the children as they tried to defend their mother, and later ‘choked’ one of them and ‘struck another in the face’.

‘Some of the children pleaded with Pitt to stop. They were all frightened. Many were crying,’ the documents read. ‘At one point, he poured beer on Jolie; at another, he poured beer and red wine on the children. After many tense hours, Pitt finally fell asleep.’

On landing, Jolie woke him up and told him she and the children were going to a hotel instead of to their home but, according to the court documents, Pitt ‘shouted that nobody was getting off the plane and prevented the family from deplaning for about 20 minutes’.

It was only ‘after a child intervened and demanded to leave’ that Pitt ‘finally relented’.

‘But once outside the plane door, Pitt again physically abused one of their children,’ the documents read. ‘He also grabbed and shook Jolie by the head and shoulders, causing one of the children to beg, “Don’t hurt her.”

‘He let Jolie go but then called her a “b****”, before adding, “F*** you, f*** you all.”

An FBI investigation was launched, but no charges were ever filed. Child services also did not find abuse.

Pitt either sought help or was encouraged to do so, with the actor seen leaving Alcoholics Anonymous that same month.

‘Brad was sober for so long because he’d been drinking steadily for over 40 years,’ an insider close to the star’s camp told the Daily Mail.

‘Overdoing it with pals and even alone, many, many times. He knew it was time to stop and lead a sober life. Drinking has caused him too many problems for too long.’

Last year he revealed the depths to which his addiction took him, telling Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast: ‘I was pretty much on my knees, and I was really open. I was trying anything and everyone, anything anyone threw at me. It was a difficult time. I needed rebooting. I needed to wake the f*** up in some areas.’

He previously credited actor Bradley Cooper with helping him get sober, claiming in 2020 that ‘every day’s been happier ever since. I love you and I thank you’.

He joked that he had ‘the cleanest urinary tract in all of LA’ after he switched his beverage of choice to ‘cranberry juice and fizzy water’.

So it is no surprise ‘some of Brad’s Alcoholics Anonymous friends have expressed concern about him drinking again,’ said our Plan B source.

Falling off the wagon now would be especially catastrophic for Pitt, given that his career was seemingly unaffected by the media attention over the plane incident.

His war drama Allied was released two months later and was well received – despite the rumours of an affair with his co-star Marion Cotillard, something she publicly denied. She was in a long-term relationship.

This was followed by his company Plan B Entertainment picking up the Best Picture Oscar in 2017 for the coming-of-age drama Moonlight. Unsurprisingly, Pitt wasn’t in attendance.

For a while, acting roles were minimal as he slipped behind-the-scenes, producing a wealth of films before re-emerging and winning an acting Oscar for Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (2019) and landing a Best Picture Oscar nomination for F1 The Movie earlier this year.

And the Hollywood heartthrob, estimated to be worth $400million (£296million), has 19 upcoming projects in various states of filming, pre- and post-production.

Pitt may have managed to find happiness with de Ramon and to stop his entire life from free-falling, but he has had no such luck with his children who have all distanced themselves from the actor, with all bar Pax, now 23, even going as far as filing to legally drop ‘Pitt’ from their last names.

When Shiloh turned 18, in May 2024 she filed to change her name to Shiloh Nouvel Jolie, which was granted a few months later in a Los Angeles court. That same month, Vivienne, then 15, went by the name of ‘Vivienne Jolie’ in the Playbill for Broadway’s The Outsiders, which she produced alongside her mother.

Then, in May this year, Maddox, 24, legally dropped his father’s last name, and Zahara was announced as ‘Zahara Marley Jolie’ when she graduated from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. The following month she filed a petition in the Los Angeles Superior Court to officially change her name. A hearing is set for September 28.

Her younger brother Knox also dropped the name Pitt from his high school graduation diploma this summer.

And the estrangement has stretched to the wider Pitt family, with one family insider telling the Daily Mail in 2024 that Pitt’s parents hadn’t seen their grandchildren in eight years, despite attempts to make contact.

Jolie faced accusations of trying to drive a wedge between Pitt and the children, with former British SAS soldier Tony Webb, who worked for the family for more than 20 years, claiming that a colleague told him he’d overheard the actress ‘encouraging the children to avoid spending time with Pitt during custody visits’.

This week a source close to Pitt’s camp was insistent that the actor had not resumed drinking as a result of the ongoing estrangement.

‘The extraordinarily painful isolation of his children has been difficult, but his decision to drink is independent of this. It was not [because of] the name changes.’

Yet it is hard to ignore the timing of Pitt’s decision. If abstaining from drinking was a way to prove that he could be a good father, he seemingly has no reason to keep proving himself, given that his children have made clear their stance.

‘Brad knew when Shiloh got approval for dropping Pitt from her name in late 2024, his other children would follow suit,’ said the source close to Plan B Entertainment. ‘He was humiliated every time another one did – there was nothing he could do about it.

When Vivienne recently filed to drop Pitt [just days after her 18th birthday last month], although he knew it was coming, that was almost the final straw.’

Jolie has said little about the breakdown of their marriage, simply that it was ‘the right decision’.

‘I continue to focus on their healing,’ she told Vogue in 2021 referring to their six children. ‘Some have taken advantage of my silence, and the children see lies about themselves in the media, but I remind them that they know their own truth and their own minds.’

She has also tentatively talked about how she lost herself for a bit but was encouraged to keep going by her children, who have also largely remained silent, aside from Pax.

He attacked his ‘f****** awful human being’ of a father in an explosive Instagram rant on Father’s Day 2020, accusing the actor of making the lives of those closest to him a ‘constant hell’.

Alongside a picture of Pitt receiving an Oscar for best supporting actor, he wrote: ‘You time and time again prove yourself to be a terrible and despicable person.

‘You have no consideration or empathy toward your 4 youngest children who tremble in fear when in your presence.’

He claimed that Pitt will ‘never understand the damage’ he inflicted on his family because he is ‘incapable’, adding that ‘the truth will come to light someday’.

Despite being declared legally single in 2019 and the overall divorce finalised and signed off in December 2024, the exes are still embroiled in an acrimonious battle -dubbed the War of the Rosé – over shares in their 1,200-acre estate, Miraval, in Provence, where the award-winning wine they launched in 2013, is made.

‘Although they’re still battling it out, he doesn’t feel that falling off the wagon will be an issue,’ said a source. ‘If he wasn’t so much in love and in such a great place in his career, the sadness of his family and Angie issues would be way too much.

‘When it’s all done and she’s completely out of his life, he feels he’ll finally be able to breathe again.’