Brad Pitt’s Health Journey Through the Years: Inside His Ups and Downs

Amid Brad Pitt’s lengthy career in Hollywood, he’s been candid about his mental and physical health challenges through the years.

“I think I spent years with a low-grade depression, and it’s not until coming to terms with that, trying to embrace all sides of self — the beauty and the ugly— that I’ve been able to catch those moments of joy,” the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood star told GQ in an August 2022 profile. "I think all our hearts are broken.”

Pitt, who was previously married to Angelina Jolie between 2014 and 2016, often used alcohol as a coping mechanism before focusing on his sobriety.

“I had a really cool men’s [Alcoholic’s Anonymous] group here that was really private and selective, so it was safe,” he told the magazine. “Because I’d seen things of other people who had been recorded while they were spilling their guts, and that’s just atrocious to me.”

The Oklahoma native — who shares children Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, twins Vivienne and Knox with the Eternals actress —has previously been candid about his sobriety struggles.

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“The fact is, we all carry pain, grief and loss,” Pitt told The New York Times in September 2019 of dealing with his 2016 split from Jolie. “We spend most of our time hiding it, but it’s there, it’s in you. So you open up those boxes. I had taken things as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges.”

He continued: “You had all these men sitting around being open and honest in a way I have never heard. 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.”

The Ad Astra star made headlines in June 2022, revealing he has been self-diagnosed with prosopagnosia or “face blindness.”

“Nobody believes me! I wanna meet another [who has the same condition],” he told GQ at the time. “I always felt very alone in my life … alone growing up as a kid, alone even out here, and it’s really not till recently that I have had a greater embrace of my friends and family. What’s that line, it was either Rilke or Einstein, believe it or not, but it was something about when you can walk with the paradox, when you carry real pain and real joy simultaneously, this is maturity, this is growth.”

Scroll below to revisit Pitt’s health ups and downs through the years:

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Pitt first opened up about his undiagnosed prosopagnosia condition during a June/July 2013 Esquire profile, revealing it’s the reason he primarily stays at home. 

“You meet so many damned people and then you meet 'em again,” he told the magazine, noting he was convinced he had the condition after reading about it several years earlier. “So many people hate me because they think I'm disrespecting them. So I swear to God, I took one year where I just said, ‘This year, I'm just going to cop to it and say to people, 'OK, where did we meet?' But it just got worse. People were more offended. Every now and then, someone will give me context, and I'll say, 'Thank you for helping me.' But I piss more people off. You get this thing, like, 'You're being egotistical. You're being conceited.' But it's a mystery to me, man. I can't grasp a face and yet I come from such a design/aesthetic point of view. I am going to get it tested.”

“He goes to therapy every week and is mostly interested in learning and bettering himself as a man and father,” a source exclusively told Us Weekly of the actor amid his divorce from Jolie, noting his commitment to his sobriety.

Pitt revealed at the National Board of Review awards gala in January 2020 that Bradley Cooper was a “sweetheart” who was instrumental in helping him get sober. "Every day has been happier ever since,” the Friends alum added at the time.

After a routine dental appointment, Pitt left the facility in a wheelchair, according to photos obtained by Page Six. The outlet reported that there was nothing to worry about at the time.

“I don’t have that ability to do just one or two [cigarettes] a day,” Pitt told GQ. “It’s not in my makeup. I’m all in and I’m going to drive into the ground. I’ve lost my privileges."

The actor told GQ that he had “low-grade depression” for several years, noting he often has felt “very alone in life.”

Pitt told the magazine that he struggles to remember individuals’ faces, which he attributed to a self-diagnosed prosopagnosia condition.