American actor and producer William Bradley Pitt came into this world on December 18, 1963. He has won a number of honors, including two Oscars, two BAFTAs, two Golden Globes, and a Primetime Emmy. Pitt, one of the most powerful celebrities of all time, was named to both the Time 100 list in 2007 and Forbes' yearly Celebrity 100 list from 2006–2008.
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Pitt rose to fame after playing the role of a cowboy hitchhiker in Thelma & Louise, a 1991 road picture directed by Ridley Scott. A River Runs Through It(1992), Legends of the Fall(1994), Interview with the Vampire(1994), Seven (1995), and others saw Pitt in leading man roles, catapulting him to stardom. Pitt starred in Ocean's Eleven (2001), a heist film directed by Steven Soderbergh, and went on to have further financial success with the part. He returned for the sequels. His breakout roles in blockbuster films like Bullet Train (2022), World War Z (2013), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), and the historical epic Troy (2004) solidified his position as a leading actor.
For his role as a stuntman in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), directed by Quentin Tarantino, Pitt was named Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars. The science fiction drama 12 Monkeys (1995), the fantasy romance The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), and the sports drama Moneyball (2011) were the films in which he was nominated for an Academy Award. A number of his other critically acclaimed films include him, including: Fight Club (1999), Babel (2006), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), Burn After Reading (2008), Inglourious Basterds (2009), The Tree of Life (2011), and The Big Short (2015).
Pitt helped start the production business Plan B Entertainment in 2001. His producing credits include 12 Years a Slave (2013), Moneyball (2011), and The Big Short (2015), for which he received Oscar nominations. In 1995 and 2000, Pitt was awarded People's Sexiest Man Alive.
**Early years**
William Bradley Pitt was born to school counselor Jane Etta and trucking company owner William Alvin Pitt on December 18, 1963, in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Douglas Pitt (born in 1966) and Julie (née Pitt) Neal (born in 1969) were his younger siblings with whom he resided in Springfield, Missouri, after the family relocated there. From his strict Christian upbringing as a Southern Baptist, he "oscillate[d] between agnosticism and atheism." It wasn't until much later that he found a way to combine his faith with spirituality. Since Pitt grew up in an area with "a lot of hills, a lot of lakes," he has characterized Springfield as "Mark Twain country, Jesse James country."
Pitt was an athlete at Kickapoo High School, competing on the tennis, swimming, and golf teams. He was an active member of the school's musical theater, debate, and Key and Forensics groups. Pitt attended the University of Missouri in 1982 after finishing high school, where he studied advertising and media. Despite the impending graduation, Pitt was not yet prepared to settle down. "A portal into different worlds for me" was how he described movies, and because he knew they weren't created in Missouri, he set out to visit the cities that did. Pitt dropped out of college two weeks before he was supposed to graduate and headed to Los Angeles, where he did odd jobs and took acting classes. His acting idols from the early days were Mickey Rourke, Sean Penn, and Gary Oldman.
Work History
*Work completed between 1987 and 1993*
Pitt trained under acting teacher Roy London while he battled for a foothold in Hollywood. Beginning in 1987 with uncredited roles in No Way Out, No Man's Land, and Less than Zero, he went on to have a successful acting career (1987). Two episodes of the NBC soap opera Another World aired in May 1987, marking his broadcast debut. Pitt had a cameo appearance on Growing Pains (ABC) and Trial and Error (CBS) in November of that year. From December 1987 to February 1988, he was seen in four episodes of the CBS primetime series Dallas, playing the role of Randy, who was the boyfriend of Shalane McCall's character, Charlotte, who was the daughter of Jenna Wade. Pitt appeared in an episode of the Fox police drama 21 Jump Street later that year (1988). The same year also saw the Yugoslavian-American. His first main part was in the 1988 co-production The Dark Side of the Sun, in which he played a young American whose family had sent him to the Adriatic Sea in search of a cure for his skin ailment. The film's 1997 release came after it had been shelved at the start of the Croatian War of Independence. Both of Pitt's 1989 film appearances were in supporting roles: the first was in the comedy Happy Together, and the second was in the horror flick Cutting Class, which was the first of Pitt's films to be released to theaters. His television guest spots include Freddy's Nightmares, Head of the Class, Thirtysomething, and Growing Pains (again).
Too Young to Die? was a 1990 NBC television movie starring Pitt as Billy Canton, a heroin addict who exploits a young runaway played by Juliette Lewis.this is the tale of a murdered adolescent who was molested and later sentenced to death. Pitt co-starred in six episodes of the short-lived Fox drama Glory Days and took a supporting role in the HBO television film The Image in the same year. Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker wrote: "Pitt is a magnificent slimeball as her hoody boyfriend; looking and sounding like a malevolent John Cougar Mellencamp, he's really scary." After that, Pitt appeared in Across the Tracks (1991), in which Rick Schroder played the role of Joe Maloney, a high school runner who had a criminal brother. The same year that he was featured in a TV ad for Levi's jeans set to the song "20th Century Boy"
Pitt gained greater fame for his supporting part in Thelma & Louise, a 1991 road picture directed by Ridley Scott, after a long career in supporting roles and many TV guest appearances. He became acquainted with Thelma (Geena Davis) while playing the role of J.D., a small-time crook. Many consider Pitt's romantic scene with Davis to be the pivotal moment that established him as a sex symbol. Pitt continued his acting career after Thelma & Louise with the low-budget 1991 feature Johnny Suede, about a budding rock star, and the 1992 live-action/animated fantasy picture Cool World, although none of these films helped his career.
In Robert Redford's 1992 biopic A River Runs Through It, Pitt played the part of Paul Maclean. According to People's Janet Mock, Pitt's portrayal of the character was a career-defining performance that proved he was more than just a "cowboy-hatted hunk." Pitt, who felt pressured while filming the film, later admitted that it was one of his "weakest performances... It's so weird that it ended up being the one that I got the most attention for." He also believed that he benefited from collaborating with such a talented crew and cast. Working with Redford was like playing tennis with a top player; "when you play with somebody better than you, your game gets better." Pitt and Juliette Lewis reunited for the 1993 road picture Kalifornia. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers praised Pitt's portrayal of serial killer and Lewis' abusive husband Early Grayce as "outstanding, all boyish charm and then a snort that exudes pure menace." Pitt was also famous for his cameo in the cult hit True Romance, where he played Floyd, a stoner who added comic relief to the action flick. As the year came to a close, he was honored with a ShoWest Award for Male Star of Tomorrow.
**New Beginnings** (1994–1998)
Based on the 1976 novel by Anne Rice of the same name, the horror film Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, in which Pitt starred as vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac, was released in 1994. Antonio Banderas, Christian Slater, Kirsten Dunst, and Tom Cruise were all members of the ensemble cast. His 1995 performance was critically panned, despite his two MTV Movie Awards. The Dallas Observer reports that "Brad Pitt [...] is a large part of the problem [in the film]. When directors play up his cocky, hunkish, folksy side [...] he's a joy to watch. But there's nothing about him that suggests inner torment or even self-awareness, which makes him a boring Louis."
Legends of the Fall (1994), starring Brad Pitt, was based on a novel by Jim Harrison of the same name. It took place in the American West in the early 20th century and followed the release of Interview with the Vampire. Pitt got his first Golden Globe Award nomination for his portrayal of Tristan Ludlow, the son of Cornish immigrant Colonel William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins). The brothers of Pitt were played by Aidan Quinn and Henry Thomas, respectively. Many critics lauded Pitt for his performance, even if the picture had mixed reviews. New York Times critic Janet Maslin remarked, "Pitt's diffident mix of acting and attitude works to such heartthrob perfection it's a shame the film's superficiality gets in his way." Deseret News anticipated that Pitt's status as a main actor will be further cemented by Legends of the Fall.
In the 1995 crime thriller Seven, Pitt co-starred with Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Kevin Spacey as a detective pursuing a serial murderer who targets individuals he holds responsible for the Seven Deadly Sins. Pitt said the role will broaden his acting horizons and that the film was fantastic. He promised to leave "this 'pretty boy' thing [...] and play someone with flaws." Critics praised Pitt's performance, calling it "screen acting at its best," and praising his "determined, energetic, creditable job" as the detective. At the global box office, Seven made $327 million. In Terry Gilliam's 1995 science fiction picture 12 Monkeys, Pitt portrayed deranged anarchist Jeffrey Goines, following the success of Seven. The majority of critics gave the film good marks, praising Pitt in particular. With her review of Twelve Monkeys, Janet Maslin of The New York Times characterized the film as "fierce and disturbing." Maslin went on to praise Pitt's "startlingly frenzied performance," saying that Pitt "electrifies Jeffrey with a weird magnetism that becomes important later in the film." Pitt was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards and won the Golden Globe during the film.
He had an appearance in the 1996 judicial drama Sleepers, which was adapted from the novel of the same name by Lorenzo Carcaterra. Opinions on the film were divided. In 1997's The Devil's Own, Pitt co-starred with Harrison Ford as Rory Devany, a terrorist for the Irish Republican Army; the part demanded that Pitt acquire an Irish accent. The San Francisco Chronicle said that while Pitt achieves the appropriate level of moral ambiguity, his Irish brogue may be overly convincing, making it difficult to understand him at times. The Charleston Gazette expressed its opinion that it had preferred Pitt's accent to the film. There was a global gross of $140 million for The Devil's Own.
In Jean-Jacques Annaud's Seven Years in Tibet, he starred later that year as Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian climber. Pitt and co-star David Thewlis rock climbed in California and the European Alps as part of their months-long training for the role, which required extensive mountain climbing and hiking. Meet Joe Black, a fantasy romance film from 1998, starred Pitt. To better understand humanity, he represented death as a figure taking up residence in a young man's body. Many critics panned the picture and Pitt in particular for his performance. Roger Ebert said, "Pitt is a fine actor, but this performance is a miscalculation." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle said that Pitt failed to "make an audience believe that he knows all the mysteries of death and eternity."
During the years 1999–2003, I rose to fame.
Pitt played the role of Tyler Durden in David Fincher's 1999 film Fight Club, based on the novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk. Pitt took martial arts, grappling, and boxing classes to be ready for the role. For the role, Pitt agreed to have several of his front teeth extracted and then replaced after production wrapped. In an interview for the film's promotional materials, Pitt noted that rather than taking out one's aggressions on another person, the film encouraged viewers to "have an experience, take a punch more and see how you come out on the other end." The film made its world premiere at the 1999 Venice International Film Festival. Although critics had mixed feelings about the picture overall, Pitt's performance was highly acclaimed. Variety praised Pitt for being "cool, charismatic and more dynamically physical, perhaps than [...] his breakthrough role in Thelma and Louise," while CNN's Paul Clinton praised the film for being both daring and successful. The 2000 DVD release of Fight Club turned the film into a cult favorite, despite its worse-than-expected performance at the box office.
Pitt played the role of an Irish Traveller fighter in Snatch, Guy Ritchie's 2000 gangster flick, with an accent that was almost unintelligible. Though the majority of critics lauded Pitt, a few were harsh on Snatch. According to Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle, Pitt was "ideally cast as an Irishman whose accent is so thick even Brits can't understand him." LaSalle continued by saying that prior to Snatch, Pitt had been "shackled by roles that called for brooding introspection, but recently he has found his calling in black comic outrageousness and flashy extroversion;" and that Amy Taubin of The Village Voice asserted that Pitt was able to extract the most comic mileage from a one-joke role.
The Mexican, a romantic comedy starring Pitt and Julia Roberts that came out the next year, was well-received by critics and audiences alike. After playing a character mentored by Robert Redford, Pitt portrayed Tom Bishop, a CIA officer, in the 2001 Cold War drama Spy Game, which grossed $143 million. Even though Pitt and Redford failed to create "much of an emotional connection for the audience," Salon.com's Mark Holcomb still thought the picture was enjoyable.
While Pitt was married to Jennifer Aniston's Rachel Green on Friends, he made a cameo appearance in the show's eighth season on November 22, 2001, as a guy with a vendetta against Rachel Green. He received an Emmy nomination for his role as a standout guest star in a comedy series for this performance. Pitt portrayed the role of Rusty Ryan in the 2001 heist picture Ocean's Eleven, which was adapted from the Rat Pack classic from 1960. Julia Roberts, Andy García, George Clooney, and Matt Damon were among the ensemble cast members he became a part of. Despite mixed reviews, Ocean's Eleven was a commercial smash, grossing $450 million throughout the world.
In February 2002, Pitt made an appearance on Jackass, a reality show on MTV. In the first episode, he ran across Los Angeles with some of the cast members wearing gorilla suits. In the second episode, Pitt took part in his own staged kidnapping. George Clooney's directorial debut, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, included Pitt in a cameo appearance the same year. In 2003, he made his voice acting debut in the DreamWorks animated feature Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, portraying the title role. He also appeared in an episode of King of the Hill, voice acting as Patch, Boomhauer's brother.
From 2004 to 2008, it gained international prominence.
In 2004, Pitt starred as Achilles in Troy and returned to his role as Rusty Ryan in Ocean's Twelve, the sequel. In preparation for filming Troy, an adaptation of Homer's Iliad, he trained for six months with a sword. He had an Achilles tendon injury while filming, which slowed down production for a few weeks. The Washington Post's Stephen Hunter said that Pitt was fantastic in the part. Plan B Entertainment, which he co-founded with Jennifer Aniston and Brad Grey, then-CEO of Paramount Pictures, two years prior, produced Troy as its debut feature. CNN's Paul Clinton praised Pitt and Clooney's chemistry in Ocean's Twelve, calling it "the best male chemistry since Paul Newman and Robert Redford." Pitt had a role as John Smith in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, an action comedy directed by Doug Liman, in 2005. The plot revolves around a bored married couple who find out that one of them is an assassin sent to kill the other. Reviews were mixed, but praise for Pitt and Angelina Jolie—who played Jane Smith, his character's wife—was unanimous. According to the Star Tribune, "while the story feels haphazard, the movie gets by on gregarious charm, galloping energy and the stars' thermonuclear screen chemistry" . One of the most successful films of 2005, Mr. & Mrs. Smith grossed $478 million throughout the world.
Alejandro González Iñárritu's multi-narrative epic Babel (2006) was Pitt's next film, in which he co-starred with Cate Blanchett. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Pitt's acting was praised by critics for adding credibility and exposure to the picture. In retrospect, Pitt claims that accepting the role was one of his finest professional choices. Featured in both the 2006 Cannes picture Festival and the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival, the picture had a special presentation at the former. Babel was nominated for seven awards at the Golden Globes and Oscars; Pitt was nominated for Best Supporting Actor and the film won the Golden Globe for Best Drama. The Departed, produced by Pitt's Plan B Entertainment, took home the top prize at the Oscars that year. Onscreen, Pitt was listed as a producer, but only Graham King was declared eligible for the Oscar.
Pitt appeared in Ocean's Thirteen (2007), reprising his role as Rusty Ryan for a third film. The sequel's $311 million in worldwide box office receipts are lower than those of the first two films. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a 2007 Western drama, was Pitt's second film role. It was based on Ron Hansen's 1983 novel of the same name and starred Pitt as American outlaw Jesse James. Pitt won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 64th Venice International Film Festival for his performance in the film, which was produced by Pitt's company Plan B Entertainment and directed by Andrew Dominik. Reports indicated that Pitt played a "scary and charismatic" role in the film, which had its world premiere at the 2007 Venice Film Festival. A year later, at the 2008 festival, he was able to finally accept the prize. At the beginning of 2019, he considered it his favorite film of all time.
Pitt then worked with the Coen brothers for the first time in 2008's black comedy Burn After Reading, in which he made his subsequent cameo. Some reviews praised the picture, praising Pitt's acting in particular and describing it as "a tightly wound, slickly plotted spy comedy" in The Guardian. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, directed by David Fincher and largely based on a short tale by F. Scott Fitzgerald from 1921, was released in 2008, and he subsequently played the starring role of Benjamin Button. Fitzgerald, Scott. Benjamin Button depicts a guy who is born an octogenarian and experiences reverse aging. The Baltimore Sun's Michael Sragow calls Pitt's performance a "timeless masterpiece" due to its "sensitive" nature. Pitt received four nominations for Best Actor at the Golden Globes and two at the Academy Awards for his performance, including his first ever Screen Actors Guild Award. The picture made $329 million globally and was nominated for thirteen Oscars.
|| Prominent performer (2009–present) ||
In 2009, Pitt had his second major part in Inglourious Basterds, a war picture directed by Quentin Tarantino that had its world debut at the 2009 Cannes picture Festival. Played by Pitt was American resistance soldier Lieutenant Aldo Raine, who fought against the Nazis in France when it was under German occupation. The picture received mostly positive reviews and made $311 million worldwide. With eight nominations for the Academy Awards and seven nominations for the MTV Movie Awards—among which Pitt was nominated for Best Male Performance—the picture garnered several accolades and nominations. After that, in the 2010 animated film Megamind, he provided the voice of the superhero Metro Man. Pitt was both an actor and producer in Terrence Malick's 2011 Palme d'Or winning experimental drama The Tree of Life, which co-starred Sean Penn. He was highly acclaimed for his portrayal of Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics, in the film Moneyball, which was adapted on Michael Lewis's 2003 book of the same name. There were six nominations for Moneyball at the Oscars, including Best Picture and Pitt for Best Actor.
In Andrew Dominik's 2012 film Killing Them Softly, he played the part of mafia hitman Jackie Cogan, adapting George V. Higgins's novel Cogan's Trade. World War Z, a zombie apocalyptic thriller based on Max Brooks's novel, was released in 2013 and stars Pitt. The picture was co-produced by Pitt. Brad Pitt's highest-grossing film to date, World War Z, made $540 million worldwide. The historical drama 12 Years a Slave, which was based on Solomon Northup's memoirs, was another 2013 project that he produced and was in. The picture was well-reviewed by critics and got nine Oscar nominations, three of which it won, including Best Picture. Pitt was also in Ridley Scott's 2013 supporting role picture The Counselor. Resurrection, a science fiction/fantasy drama developed by Plan B Entertainment and ABC Studios, made its television debut in 2013–2014.
Pitt was one of the main characters in David Ayer's WWII picture Fury, which also featured Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Jon Bernthal, Michael Peña, and Jason Isaacs. This film was written and directed by Ayer. October 17, 2014 was the releasing date of the film. With almost $211 million in global box office receipts and rave accolades from critics, Fury was a smashing hit by the time it ended its run. By the Sea, Pitt and Jolie co-starred in 2015 in a romantic drama about a troubled marriage that Jolie wrote and directed herself. The film was based on her screenplay. After Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), this was their first joint feature. In his subsequent film, The Big Short, a biographical comedy-drama, Pitt not only appeared with Christian Bale, Steve Carell, and Ryan Gosling, but he also produced the film. Commercially and critically, the picture was a smashing success. Critics were pleased, and the film went on to earn nearly $102 million throughout the world. With five nominations, including Best Picture, Pitt received his third Oscar nomination for producing this picture. The romantic thriller Allied, directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Marion Cotillard as an assassin who falls for a French spy while on a mission to assassinate a German official during World War II, was released in 2016. Pitt also starred in and produced the 2017 satirical war comedy War Machine, which was available on Netflix. Pitt spent 2017 making guest appearances as a weatherman on Jim Jefferies program, a late-night chat program.
We first heard rumors of a 2017 sequel to World War Z in 2016, but production was momentarily halted, director David Fincher was confirmed, and then funding concerns led to the film's shelving. Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio reunited for Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where Pitt produced and DiCaprio appeared, as they played the roles of Cliff Booth and Leonardo, respectively, a stunt double. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, Screen Actors Guild, and Critics' Choice Movie Awards for his role in the film. This is Brad Pitt's second Oscar; he won his first for acting. Also in 2019, he was Roy McBride, a space engineer on a quest to find his father, in James Gray's space epic Ad Astra. One critic even went so far as to call Pitt's portrayal "that weaponizes passivity into a lethal form of self-defense"—the kind of performance that would often be reserved for his greatest work. Pitt was nominated for a Primetime Emmy in 2020 for his performance as Dr. Anthony Fauci in Saturday Night Live's cold open, for which he received the award.
Pitt joined the music industry in 2021 when he and French producer Damien Quintard formed a record label. After being dormant for twenty years, Miraval Studios—located in the South of France at Pitt's Chateau Miraval—will reopen in 2022. Among many others, Pink Floyd, the Cranberries, AC/DC, Sade, and Muse recorded their albums at the original, legendary studio. In 2022, Pitt was in David Leitch's Bullet Train and Damien Chazelle's Babylon, where he featured alongside Margot Robbie, whom he had worked with in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He got a $30 million deal to feature in and produce Joseph Kosinski's Formula One racing film F1 on January 5, 2022. In Jon Watts's comedy-thriller Wolfs, which came out in September 2024, he reunited with George Clooney.
* Acknowledgments and acting credits*
As an actor and producer, Pitt has won two Oscars; he has also won two BAFTAs, two Golden Globes, one Primetime Emmy, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
The following performances have garnered him awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences:
Nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the 68th Academy Awards (1995) for 12 Monkeys
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) received a Best Actor nomination at the 81st Academy Awards.
Nomination for Best Actor at the 84th Academy Awards (2011) for Moneyball
"Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" (Best Supporting Actor), winner of the 92nd Academy Awards (2019)
A combination of action and philanthropy
As a supporter of John Kerry in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, Pitt made a campus visit to the University of Missouri in October 2004 to urge students to cast their ballots. Public financing of embryonic stem-cell research was an idea he openly backed later in October. "We have to make sure that we open up these avenues so that our best and our brightest can go find these cures that they believe they will find" , added the doctor. He spoke out in favor of this by endorsing Proposition 71, a measure on the California ballot that would have allocated funds from the state to assist stem-cell research.
Pitt has shown his support for One Campaign, a group working to end global poverty and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Among the many topics covered in his narrated 2005 PBS public television documentary Rx for Survival: A world Health Challenge was the state of world health at the time. A school that is funded by Yéle Haïti, a charity established by Wyclef Jean, a hip-hop artist of Haitian descent, was visited by Pitt and Jolie the year after they took a plane to Haiti. Three Chadian and Sudanese charities serving victims of the Darfur conflict received $1 million from Pitt and Jolie in May 2007. Pitt co-founded Not On Our Watch with George Clooney, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, David Pressman, and Jerry Weintraub to bring attention to the end of "mass atrocities" throughout the world.
Pitt once took a break from filming to study computer-aided design in the Los Angeles offices of famous architect Frank Gehry, demonstrating his lifelong fascination with the built environment. On a PBS television series on sustainable architecture and design, he provided the narration for e2 design, which highlighted initiatives all around the globe to construct green buildings. Along with Thomas A. Heinz and Randell Makinson, he wrote a book on the Blacker House in 2000. After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans' Ninth Ward in 2006, he organized housing experts through the Make It Right Foundation to raise funds for the construction of 150 new, affordable, environmentally friendly homes.
With the help of the environmental group Global Green USA and thirteen architectural companies, some of which have generously offered their expertise for free, the project is underway. Pitt and Steve Bing, a philanthropist, have both pledged $5 million. In October 2008, the first six homes were finished. In September 2009, Pitt was honored with a recognition award from the U.S. The Green Building Council is an industry group that works to improve the design, construction, and operation of buildings in a sustainable way. Before meeting with U.S. In March 2009, he met with President Obama and Speaker Pelosi to discuss potential federal support for his idea of green housing and to promote it as a national model.
The Jolie-Pitt Foundation was founded in September 2006 by Pitt and Jolie to support humanitarian projects globally. In 2006, the charity gave $100,000 to the Daniel Pearl charity, which was established in honor of the late American journalist Daniel Pearl. Prior to that, it gave $1 million to Global Action for Children and $100,000 to Doctors Without Borders. Federal records show that in 2006, Pitt and Jolie put $8.5 million into the foundation; the same year, it distributed $2.4 million, and in 2007, $3.4 million. The Jolie-Pitt Foundation gave $1 million to a United Nations organization in June 2009. refugee agency to aid Pakistanis uprooted by the violence between government forces and the Taliban. One million dollars was given to Doctors Without Borders by the charity in January 2010 so that they may provide immediate medical aid to those affected by the Haitian earthquake.
No, Pitt is for same-sex marriage. Pitt expressed his intention to wed Jolie when marriage becomes legal for all Americans in an interview with Esquire published in October 2006. To defeat Proposition 8, a measure to reverse the state Supreme Court's ruling that had legalized same-sex marriage, he contributed $100,000 in September 2008. Pitt had a starring role as Judge Vaughn Walker in a March 2012 production of Dustin Lance Black's play, 8, which was a staged recreation of the federal trial that ended the same-sex marriage prohibition in California,Prop 8. For Obama's 2012 presidential campaign, Pitt stated, "I am an Obama supporter and I'm backing his U.S. election campaign." In October 2020, he voiced a campaign ad for Joe Biden.
="life outside of work"
Marriage and other committed relationships
Several of Pitt's co-stars were involved in romantic relationships from the late 1980s until the early 1990s. These included Shalane McCall of Dallas, Robin Givens of Head of the Class, Jill Schoelen of Cutting Class, Geena Davis of Thelma & Louise, and Juliette Lewis of Too Young to Die? and Kalifornia (among others). Pitt began dating McCall when she was fifteen years old and Lewis when she was sixteen. Pitt then dated Seven co-star Gwyneth Paltrow from 1994 to 1997, a relationship that was much covered in the media. The two were engaged.
Pitt and actress Jennifer Aniston tied the knot in a small ceremony in Malibu on July 29, 2000. Their romance began in 1998. The split between Pitt and Aniston was publicized in January 2005. Divorce papers were filed by Aniston two months later, with the grounds being irreconcilable differences. The Los Angeles Superior Court completed Pitt and Aniston's divorce on October 2, 2005. Pitt stated in an interview from February 2009 that he and Aniston "check in with each other" and that they were both significant figures in one other's life, contradicting media claims of an ill-fated relationship between the two.
Angelina Jolie, who Pitt worked with on Mr. & Mrs. Smith, was the center of attention throughout Pitt's divorce proceedings. There was no adultery, according to Jolie and Pitt, who said they fell in love while filming. A series of paparazzi photos with Pitt, Jolie, and Aniston's son Maddox at a Kenyan beach surfaced in April 2005, only one month after Aniston's divorce petition was filed. The media interpreted the pictures as proof of a connection between Pitt and Jolie. The media called the couple "Brangelina" due to their frequent public appearances together during 2005. Jolie made the first public acknowledgment of her connection with Pitt on January 11, 2006, when she told People that she was pregnant with Pitt's kid. Pitt and Jolie, who had been dating for seven years, confirmed their engagement in April 2012. Following a private ceremony on August 23, 2014, at France's Château Miraval, they were officially married on August 14, 2014. Jolie and Pitt's divorce was finalized on September 19, 2016, with the grounds being irreconcilable differences. Officially, the divorce was granted on April 12, 2019. Jolie countersued Pitt in 2016, alleging that he verbally and physically assaulted her and their children while on a plane, after his lawsuit against her for selling a portion of their winery to a third party.
He started seeing jewelry designer Ines de Ramon (born 1992) in 2022.
Everyone's kids
Pitt went to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with Jolie in July 2005 so she could adopt a daughter called Zahara, who was her second child. Pitt was about to become the adoptive dad of Jolie's daughter, Maddox, and Jolie's first adopted child, a boy, on December 3, 2005. A California court approved Jolie's motion to have the children's last names changed from "Jolie" to "Jolie-Pitt" on January 19, 2006. There was little delay in finalizing the adoptions.
Shiloh was born to Jolie and Brad Pitt on May 27, 2006, in Swakopmund, Namibia. Pitt verified that she met the requirements to obtain a passport from Namibia. The first photos of their daughter were sold by the parents through Getty Images; People bought the rights to use them in North America for more than $4.1 million, and Hello! bought the rights from the British for about $3.5 million. A portion of the sales revenue was given to organizations that support children in Africa. A wax replica of the two-month-old was exhibited at New York's Madame Tussauds, making history as the first statue of a baby to be honored by the museum.
Jolie adopted Pax, a child of three years old, from an orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on March 15, 2007. On February 21, 2008, Pitt adopted the son in the US. In May of 2008, during the Cannes Film Festival, Jolie announced that she was expecting twins. Knox and Vivienne were born to her on July 12, 2008, in Nice, France. People and Hello! were both given the rights to use the first twin photos. for fourteen million dollars—the priciest portraits of a celebrity ever captured. The Jolie-Pitt Foundation was the beneficiary of the couple's generous donation.
Pitt and Jolie have been at odds about child custody since Jolie's divorce petition was filed on September 19, 2016. After four and a half years of procedures, in May of 2021, Jolie was given full custody, while Pitt was granted shared custody. Concerns about Judge John W. Ouderkirk's impartiality arose in July when he was removed from the case for failing to adequately disclose his business contacts with Pitt's lawyers. Pitt will get "custodial time" with their minor children, but Jolie will have primary physical custody, as per their prior agreement from November 2018.
| Claims of abuse |
After an incident on an aircraft in which an anonymous individual accused Pitt of being "verbally abusive" and "physical" towards one of his children, the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) began an investigation into Pitt's possible child abuse in September 2016. Neither the FBI nor the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services brought criminal charges against Pitt in relation to the event.
During a court dispute in 2022 over their jointly owned vineyard, Jolie countersued Pitt. While negotiating with Pitt, Jolie's attorneys said that he asked her to sign "a nondisclosure agreement prohibiting her from speaking outside of court about his abuse of her and their children." In her complaint, Jolie claimed that Pitt had grabbed and shook her during the plane ride, strangled one of their children, and hit another in the face, among other things.
Using drugs and alcohol ===
Pitt stopped drinking and started going to AA meetings in September 2016. Along with Anthony Hopkins, who co-starred with him in Legends of the Fall and Meet Joe Black and is himself a recovered alcoholic, he discussed addiction and rehabilitation in a December 2019 interview piece for Interview. Pitt attributes his continued sobriety to the support of fellow actor Bradley Cooper.
Pitt has come clean about his use of cannabis in the late '90s, when he was trying to cope with his rising stardom. Pitt stated, "I was hiding out from the celebrity thing; I was smoking way too much dope; I was sitting on the couch and just turning into a doughnut." Following a trip to Morocco, where he experienced great poverty and misery, he curtailed his cannabis usage and devoted himself to his job.
Having trouble seeing
In 2022, Pitt revealed that his struggles with prosopagnosia (facial blindness) had persisted for years. He expressed a desire to remain at home on occasion due to his significant incapacity to identify faces in an interview he gave in 2013. But Pitt does not have a formal diagnosis of prosopagnosia.
Artists' creations
Pitt has dabbled with sculpting, studied ceramics, and has a passion for the arts. The Sara Hildén Art Museum in Tampere, Finland had an exhibition of nine of his sculptures in 2022 and 2023, with pieces by Thomas Houseago and musician Nick Cave.
Empire, which ranked Pitt as one of the 25 hottest performers of all time in 1995, is just one of many outlets that have characterized Pitt as a sex symbol and recognized him as one of the most handsome actors of all time. He repeated his title as People's Sexiest Man Alive that year and again in 2000. From 2006 through 2008, Pitt was a member of Forbes' annual Celebrity 100 list, which ranks the 100 most influential celebrities. He was ranked 20, 5, and 10th, respectively. He was one of the 100 most important individuals in the world in 2007, according to Time magazine's annual list. It was Pitt's use of "his star power to get people to look [to where] cameras don't usually catch" that the magazine recognized. The 2009 edition of the Time 100 listed him once again, but this time in the "Builders and Titans" category.
Pitt and Angelina Jolie's romance skyrocketed to the status of most-reported celebrity story in the world in 2005. In an article headlined "The Brangelina fever," Reuters described the level of media attention around the pair as "the point of insanity" after Jolie's pregnancy was announced in early 2006. The couple fled to Namibia for the birth of their daughter, which a paparazzi blog dubbed "the most anticipated baby since Jesus Christ." Similarly, Jolie's second pregnancy two years later drew intense media attention; during the two weeks she spent in a seaside hospital in Nice, photographers and reporters set up camp outside the promenade to document the birth.
Both Pitt and Jolie were named the most popular celebrity endorsers in 42 different foreign markets surveyed by ACNielsen in 2006. A number of television ads have featured Pitt. David Fincher, who had helmed Pitt in Seven, Fight Club, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, was responsible for directing the 2005 Super Bowl Heineken commercial that Pitt featured in for the American market. He also appeared in ads for Edwin Jeans, SoftBank, and Acura Integra, the last two of which featured Russian beauty Tatiana Sorokko. A minor planet 29132 Bradpitt was named after him on June 2, 2015.