Brad Pitt is opening up about “one little period” of time when he experienced suicidal thoughts.
Pitt, 62, reflected on learning to embrace the “extreme highs” and “soul-crushing lows” of life in a new interview with Esquire published Monday, August 10, recounting a conversation with a friend about wanting to become more even-keeled.
“She goes, ‘I don’t know, I believe in the human experience, and the human experience means I’m here to feel it all.’ … And that freed me,” he said. “I heard that and I went, ‘I’m going to stop feeling like there’s something wrong with that.'”
Pitt went on to detail his own journey through ups and downs.
“I was never suicidal in any way. It just was not my makeup,” he explained. “In fact, if I have any afflictions, it’s probably being a congenital optimist. Which has helped many times, and it’s also gotten me — I’ve walked foolishly head-on into a Mack truck because of my optimism. Or, as my forever-funny friend David Fincher will say, ‘Yeah, you see the glass as half full, but it’s half full of urine.'”
The Oscar winner continued, “Anyway, I’ve never been suicidal except for one little period. And in that one little period, I just thought — I just couldn’t — just didn’t see a way out. The pain was so oppressive that — I wasn’t going to act on this, but I could feel — I could feel the cold steel of the bullet in my head, and it felt like relief. And I thought, ‘Oh, OK, now I understand — I understand suicide, in the sense that it’s just relief. It’s just looking for relief from the pain. But I also think we have incredible survival instincts.”
According to Pitt, his own survival instincts “immediately kicked in,” but the struggle was real.
“Like, listen: This s*** ain’t easy,” he said. “And you’re talking to a guy who won the lottery.”
When asked whether the “oppressive” pain had anything to do with “kid stuff,” Pitt replied, “Family stuff. … We could leave it at that.”
Pitt shares six children with ex-wife Angelina Jolie, to whom he was married from 2014 to 2019. Amid an already messy legal battle involving custody and ownership of their stake in the Château Miraval winery, the tension escalated when Jolie, 51, accused Pitt of being “physically and emotionally abusive,” which he denied.
The pair’s divorce was finalized in 2024. Since then, several of Pitt’s children have publicly distanced themselves from him, opting to drop his last name.
“Angie has never discouraged the kids from having a relationship with Brad. Changing their names was solely their idea, not hers,” a source recently told Us, while a separate insider noted that Pitt was “devastated” by the decision.
A lawyer for Pitt, meanwhile, previously stated that the actor “has owned everything he’s responsible for from day one … but he’s not going to own anything he didn’t do.”
Earlier this year, a third source told Us that the situation with Pitt and his children has been “very difficult.”
“[Brad] still does hope and keeps the door open to eventual reconciliation, hopefully with all of them, but it is their decision,” the source explained. “He has no power and he can’t force them.”
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org.
