Brad Pitt has laid himself bare in his first interview since his shock split with Angelina Jolie, saying that he is to blame for their dramatic separation.
The 53-year-old actor told GQ magazine that he had been drinking heavily – there was not a day since he left college that he wasn’t “boozing or had a spliff or something” – but was now teetotal, and had gone into therapy.
In a long interview that is interspersed with pictures of Pitt posing in various US national parks, the actor acknowledged that the split was “self-inflicted”.
“I was boozing too much. It’s just become a problem,” he said, adding “I mean, we have a winery. I enjoy wine very, very much, but I just ran it to the ground. I had to step away for a minute. And truthfully I could drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka. I was a professional. I was good.”
He said he’d now replaced the alcohol with cranberry juice and fizzy water and talking to a therapist for the first time in his life.
“For me this period has really been about looking at my weaknesses and failures and owning my side of the street,” Pit admitted in the deeply personal story. “I’m an asshole when it comes to this need for justice. I don’t know where it comes from, this hollow quest for justice for some perceived slight. I can drill on that for days and years. It’s done me no good whatsoever.”
The star, who got his big break as the heartthrob in Thelma and Louise back in 1991, admits that he had thought he was managing his life well, but now sees that he was missing the obvious.
“I remember literally having this thought a year, a year and a half ago, someone was going through some scandal. Something crossed my path that was a big scandal—and I went, ‘Thank God I’m never going to have to be a part of one of those again’,” Pitt told GQ. “I live my life, I have my family, I do my thing, I don’t do anything illegal, I don’t cross anyone’s path. What’s the David Foster Wallace quote? Truth will set you free, but not until it’s done with you first.”
Now, the actor is worried about the very public nature of his marriage break-up on his six children with Jolie, admitting that he had sometimes not made time for his kids when he was away working on movies.
“Kids are so delicate. They absorb everything. They need to have their hand held and things explained. They need to be listened to. When I get in that busy work mode, I’m not hearing. I want to be better at that,” he said.
But he said that he and Jolie, who he called “my partner”, had now agreed that they would work out together how the children would split their time between parents, without going to court. This is a far cry from the first weeks after they separated last September following a 11-year relationship, when Pitt was investigated by the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services over an argument he allegedly had his 15-year-old son.
The investigation was reportedly closed with no finding of abuse by Pitt but by then, Jolie had filed for divorce for what her lawyer said was “the health of the family.”
“I was really on my back and chained to a system when Child Services was called,” Pitt told GQ. “And you know, after that, we’ve been able to work together to sort this out. We’re both doing our best.”