Brad Pitt has opened up for the first time since his wife Angelina Jolie shocked the world by filing for divorce from the actor last September.
The 53-year-old says the breakdown of his marriage was “self-inflicted” and due to his drinking habits in a revealing interview with GQ Style.
The messy and incredibly public split was reportedly due to a fight Pitt had had with his son Maddox while on the couple’s private jet. A custody battle ensued over the coupe’s six children, with Pitt initially investigated for possible child abuse.
Though he doesn’t go into detail about specific events, Pitt says, “(The split was) self-inflicted.”
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“If you love someone, set them free. Now I know what it means, by feeling it. It means to love without ownership. It means expecting nothing in return. It doesn’t mean f**k all to me until, you know. Until you live it.”
He also revealed that his drinking had become a problem in his marriage and that he’s since quit. “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,” he said.
“And truthfully I could drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka. I was a professional… I mean I stopped everything except boozing when I started my family. But even this last year, you know – things I wasn’t dealing with. I was boozing too much. It’s just become a problem.”
“I was really on my back and chained to a system when Child Services was called. And you know, after that, we’ve been able to work together to sort this out,” he explained.
“We’re both doing our best. I heard one lawyer say, ‘No one wins in court – it’s just a matter of who gets hurt worse.’ And it seems to be true, you spend a year just focused on building a case to prove your point and why you’re right and why they’re wrong, and it’s just an investment in vitriolic hatred.”
“I just refuse. And fortunately, my partner in this agrees. It’s just very, very jarring for the kids, to suddenly have their family ripped apart.”
“There’s a lot to tell them because there’s understanding the future, there’s understanding the immediate moment and why we’re at this point, and then it brings up a lot of issues from the past that we haven’t talked about. So our focus is that everyone comes out stronger and better people – there is no other outcome,” Pitt said.
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