Brad Pitt gets candid about recovery: ‘I needed rebooting’

Brad Pitt attends the world premiere of "F1 The Movie" on Monday, June 16, 2025, in Times Square in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

NEW YORK — Brad Pitt is opening up about his experience in recovery.

During an appearance on “Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard,” the actor talked about getting to know Shepard, who is also in recovery, through an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting they both attended.

“I was pretty much on my back, on my knees. I was really open. I was trying anything anyone threw at me,” Pitt said about first attending AA. “It was a particular difficult time. I needed rebooting. I needed to wake the f**k up in some areas.”

“You don’t come into AA because everything’s working out fantastic,” Shepard said.

“No,” Pitt replied. “That’s usually not the entry point.”

“It’s not the winner’s club,” Shepard added. “Your hair has gotta be on fire before you go like, ‘Yeah, I’ll go hang with a bunch of dudes and talk about emotions.’ “

Pitt has previously shared he got sober after he and Angelina Jolie split in 2016.

“I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges,” Pitt told the New York Times in 2019.

The actor, who next stars as a race car driver in “F1: The Movie,” acknowledged to Shepard that he can be “a stubborn f**k.”

“But when I’ve stepped in s**t, I’m pretty good at taking responsibility for it and owning up to it,” Pitt said.

“Now it’s a quest to what can I do with this and how can I right this and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he added. “Be better, step up.”

He also said he learned from the candor of the other men in his recovery group.

“It became a thing for me, something I looked forward to,” Pitt said.

“F1: The Movie” debuts in theaters on June 27.