Brad Pitt Joined Alcoholics Anonymous Following His Split from Angelina Jolie

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The notoriously private Brad Pitt is, well, still notoriously private, but he let a sliver of his guard down in a recent New York Times profile.

Pitt, who signed on to his upcoming film Ad Astra in the months following his and Angelina Jolie’s bombshell divorce filing in September 2016, said little when it came to discussing that pivotal time in his life, allowing only, “I had family stuff going on.” But when pressed to reveal whether the space-set flick helped him through his own loneliness, he said, “The fact is, we all carry pain, grief and loss. We spend most of our time hiding it, but it’s there, it’s in you.”

Following the initial split, Pitt gave up alcohol. “I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges,” he explained. He spent the next year-and-a-half in Alcoholics Anonymous. “You had all these men sitting around being open and honest in a way I have never heard,” he said of the program. “It was this safe space where there was little judgment, and therefore little judgment of yourself. It was actually really freeing just to expose the ugly sides of yourself. There’s great value in that.”

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Pitt shared the news of his sobriety in a 2017 interview with GQ, telling the publication, “I can't remember a day since I got out of college where I wasn't boozing or had a spliff, or something … I'm really, really happy to be done with all of that. It's been half a year now, which is bittersweet."