Brad Pitt Biography, Career, Net Worth, And Other Interesting Facts

Brad Pitt is a famous American actor and movie producer born on December 18, 1963. He’s won lots of awards like two Oscars, two British Academy Film Awards, two Golden Globes, and even a Primetime Emmy Award. He’s been a big deal in Hollywood for a long time, making it onto Forbes’ Celebrity 100 list multiple times and being included in Time magazine’s list of the most influential people.

Pitt’s acting career kicked off with a bang when he played a hitchhiker in the movie Thelma & Louise in 1991. After that, he starred in some major films like A River Runs Through It and Legends of the Fall. You might also remember him from Interview with the Vampire where he acted alongside Tom Cruise. He’s received a lot of praise for his roles in movies like Seven and 12 Monkeys which even got him a Golden Globe award.

But Pitt hit the big time with movies like Ocean’s Eleven and its sequels. He became known as a leading man in Hollywood, starring in blockbusters like Troy, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, World War Z, and Bullet Train. He’s also been in some critically acclaimed movies like Fight Club, Babel, and The Big Short. Pitt has been nominated for Oscars several times and won one for his role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

In addition to acting, Pitt co-founded a production company called Plan B Entertainment in 2001. They’ve produced some major award-winning films like The Departed, 12 Years a Slave, and Moonlight. Pitt himself has been named People’s Sexiest Man Alive twice, in 1995 and 2000. His personal life especially his marriages to Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie has been the focus of a lot of media attention. He has six children with Jolie, three of whom were adopted from other countries.

Brad Pitt’s Early Life and Education

William Bradley Pitt was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, on December 18, 1963. His dad William Alvin Pitt ran a trucking company and his mom Jane Etta (née Hillhouse) worked as a school counselor. When he was small, his family moved to Springfield, Missouri, where he grew up with his brother Douglas and sister Julie.

He was brought up in a religious home and went to a Southern Baptist church. But as he got older, he started questioning his beliefs and went back and forth between not being sure if he believed in God and not believing at all. Eventually, he found a way to blend his spiritual beliefs.

Springfield, where he grew up, was full of nature and hills, kind of like the stories of Mark Twain and Jesse James.

In high school, Pitt was into sports like golf, swimming, and tennis. He was also involved in clubs like Key and Forensics, where he did debates, and he even did some acting in school plays.

After high school, he went to the University of Missouri to study journalism and advertising. But he was passionate about movies. Since there wasn’t much happening in the film world in Missouri, he decided to move to Los Angeles, just a little bit shy of getting his degree. There, he started taking acting classes and doing odd jobs to get by. He looked up to actors like Gary Oldman, Sean Penn, and Mickey Rourke as his inspirations.

Career

Early work (1987–1993)

As Brad Pitt was trying to make it in Los Angeles, he got acting lessons from a coach named Roy London. His acting journey kicked off in 1987 with small roles in movies like No Way Out, No Man’s Land, and Less than Zero. He also appeared on TV in shows like Another World, Trial and Error, and Growing Pains.

He popped up in a few episodes of Dallas and guest-starred on 21 Jump Street. In 1988, he landed his first big movie role in The Dark Side of the Sun, but it didn’t come out until later due to some conflicts. That same year, he appeared in Happy Together and Cutting Class.

In 1990, he played a creepy boyfriend in a TV movie called Too Young to Die? and did a stint on the show Glory Days. He also had a role in an HBO film called The Image. Then in 1991, he showed up in Across the Tracks and did a Levi’s jeans commercial. But it was his part in Thelma & Louise as a charming outlaw that got him noticed.

After that, he starred in Johnny Suede and Cool World, but they didn’t do so well. In 1992, he got a big break in A River Runs Through It, which People magazine said was his best work yet. Even though he felt unsure about his performance, he learned a lot from working with the director, Robert Redford.

In 1993, he played a scary guy in Kalifornia and had a funny role in True Romance. He even won an award for being a promising new star.

Breakthrough (1994–1998)

In 1994, Brad Pitt played a vampire named Louis in a movie called Interview with the Vampire, based on a book by Anne Rice. Even though he won two MTV Movie Awards for his role, some critics didn’t like his performance, saying he didn’t show enough inner turmoil.

After that, Pitt was in a movie called Legends of the Fall in the same year. It’s about a family in the American West. He played a character named Tristan Ludlow and got nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Some critics praised his acting, but others thought the movie was a bit shallow.

Then, in 1995, Pitt was in a crime thriller called Seven with Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow. He played a detective chasing a serial killer. Pitt said it was a great movie and wanted to break away from his pretty boy image. Critics liked his performance, and the movie made a lot of money.

Next, he starred in a science fiction movie called 12 Monkeys where he played a crazy character. Critics loved his performance, and he won a Golden Globe Award.

In 1996, Pitt was in a legal drama called Sleepers, but it didn’t get great reviews. Then, in 1997, he starred in The Devil’s Own with Harrison Ford, where he played an Irish terrorist. Some critics didn’t like his Irish accent.

Later that year, he played an Austrian mountaineer in Seven Years in Tibet, a movie about his adventures. He trained hard for the role. Then, in 1998, he starred in Meet Joe Black, where he played Death in human form. Critics didn’t love his performance in that one.

Rise to prominence (1999–2003)

In 1999, Brad Pitt played a character named Tyler Durden in a movie called Fight Club, which was based on a book by Chuck Palahniuk and directed by David Fincher. To get ready for the role, Pitt learned boxing, taekwondo, and grappling. He even agreed to have some of his front teeth removed temporarily to look more like the character. During interviews about the movie, Pitt talked about how it’s better to deal with your problems instead of taking them out on others.

Fight Club was first shown at a film festival in Venice, and even though some critics didn’t like the movie overall, they praised Pitt’s acting. Some said he took a big risk with the role, but it paid off. Even though Fight Club didn’t do great in theaters at first, it became really popular once it came out on DVD.

After that, Pitt played a role as an Irish boxer in a movie called Snatch in 2000. Some people didn’t like the movie much, but they thought Pitt did a great job. One reviewer said Pitt was perfect for the role, even though his character’s accent was hard to understand. Then, in 2001, Pitt starred in a romantic comedy with Julia Roberts called The Mexican, which got mixed reviews but did well at the box office. He also played a CIA agent in a thriller called Spy Game, which made a lot of money, but some critics thought it lacked emotional depth.

In 2001, Brad Pitt also made a guest appearance on the TV show Friends, where he played a character who didn’t like Jennifer Aniston’s character (who he was married to at the time). He got nominated for an award for that role. Later that year, he was in the movie Ocean’s Eleven a remake of an old movie that was a big hit. Critics liked it, and it made a ton of money worldwide.

In 2002, Pitt did some fun stuff like appearing in a couple of episodes of a crazy show called Jackass and having a small part in a movie directed by George Clooney. He also did some voice acting in 2003 for an animated movie and a TV show.

Worldwide recognition (2004–2008)

In 2004, Brad Pitt had two big roles in movies. First, he played Achilles in Troy after six months of training with swords. Then, he reprised his role as Rusty Ryan in Ocean’s Twelve. He got hurt during Troy, which delayed filming. People thought he did a great job in the tough role. Troy was also the first movie from his production company, Plan B Entertainment. Ocean’s Twelve did well, making $362 million worldwide, and Brad Pitt and George Clooney’s friendship in the movie was praised.

The next year, in 2005, Pitt starred in Mr. & Mrs. Smith with Angelina Jolie. They played a couple who are secretly assassins hired to kill each other. The movie made $478 million worldwide and was one of the biggest hits of the year. People liked the chemistry between Pitt and Jolie.

In 2006, Pitt starred in Babel with Cate Blanchett. Critics liked his performance, and the movie got a lot of nominations and awards. That same year, his company produced The Departed, which won the Oscar for Best Picture, though only one person got the credit for producing it.

In 2007, Pitt was in Ocean’s Thirteen and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. While the third Ocean movie wasn’t as successful as the first two, it still made $311 million. “Jesse James” got Pitt an award at the Venice Film Festival.

In 2008, Brad Pitt starred in Burn After Reading, a comedy, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, where his character ages backward. He got nominated for awards for both movies and Benjamin Button got a lot of nominations for the Oscars and made $329 million at the box office worldwide.

Established actor (2009–present)

Brad Pitt has been in a bunch of cool movies over the years. One of his big hits was Inglourious Basterds in 2009, where he played a tough guy fighting Nazis. It made a ton of money and got good reviews. He also voiced a superhero in an animated movie called Megamind and acted in a serious drama called Moneyball, where he played a baseball manager.

After that, he was in movies like World War Z, a zombie thriller, and 12 Years a Slave, a historical drama that got a lot of awards. He also worked on a TV show called Resurrection. Brad Pitt kept busy with more movies like Fury, By the Sea with his wife Angelina Jolie, and The Big Short, a comedy-drama about the financial crisis.

He did a romantic thriller called Allied and a funny war comedy called War Machine. There was talk of a sequel to World War Z, but it got canceled. Brad’s next big role was in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in 2019, where he won lots of awards for playing a stunt double.

He also starred in a space movie called Ad Astra, which people thought was one of his best performances. Brad even showed up on Saturday Night Live playing Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Now, Brad Pitt is getting into the music business. He’s opening up a recording studio in France, which used to be famous for making records for bands like Pink Floyd and AC/DC.

In 2022, Brad Pitt was in movies like Bullet Train and Babylon. He’s also teaming up with George Clooney and working on a racing movie. Brad’s staying busy in Hollywood!

Philanthropy and activism

Brad Pitt went to the University of Missouri in October 2004 to tell students to vote in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, and he supported John Kerry. He also spoke out in favor of using public money for embryonic stem-cell research, saying it’s important to let smart people work on finding cures. He backed Proposition 71 in California, which aimed to use state funds for stem-cell research.

He supports the One Campaign, which fights AIDS and poverty in poor countries. He also narrated a TV series about global health issues. He and Jolie went to Haiti to visit a school supported by a charity. They gave $1 million to help people in Chad and Sudan affected by the crisis in Darfur. With other actors, he started an organization called Not On Our Watch to stop mass violence.

Brad Pitt is interested in architecture and even studied computer design with a famous architect. He narrated a TV show about building eco-friendly structures. He co-wrote a book about a special house. He started the Make It Right Foundation to build sustainable homes in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

He met with President Obama and Speaker Pelosi to talk about his idea of eco-friendly housing. He and Jolie set up a charity called the Jolie-Pitt Foundation to help people around the world. They gave money to different causes like helping refugees and providing medical aid after disasters.

Brad Pitt supports same-sex marriage and said he would marry Jolie when it’s legal for everyone. He gave money to fight against a law in California that tried to ban same-sex marriage. He acted in a play supporting same-sex marriage rights. He also supported Obama in his election campaigns and narrated an ad for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020.

Personal life

Relationships

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Brad Pitt dated a few of his fellow actors, like Robin Givens, Jill Schoelen, and Juliette Lewis. He was in his late twenties when he dated Juliette, who was only seventeen at the time. Then he got together with Gwyneth Paltrow, his co-star in the movie Seven, and they were engaged for a while from 1994 to 1997.

After that, Pitt met Jennifer Aniston in 1998, and they got married in a small ceremony in Malibu in 2000. But by January 2005, they announced they were splitting up, and Jennifer filed for divorce two months later. Their divorce was finalized in October 2005. Even though there were rumors of bad blood between them, Brad later said they still kept in touch and were important to each other.

While going through his divorce from Jennifer, Brad Pitt started a relationship with Angelina Jolie, whom he met on the set of “Mr. & Mrs. Smith.” They insisted they didn’t cheat and that their relationship started after Brad’s marriage ended. But the media noticed them spending a lot of time together, especially after photos of them on a beach with Angelina’s son surfaced.

They became known as “Brangelina.” Angelina confirmed their relationship in 2006 when she announced she was pregnant with Brad’s child. After being together for seven years, they got engaged in 2012 and got married in 2014 in France. However, their marriage ended in 2016 when Angelina filed for divorce, and they were legally declared single in 2019. In 2022, Brad started dating Ines de Ramon, who is a 29-year-old jewelry designer.

Children

In July 2005, Brad Pitt went with Angelina Jolie to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she adopted another child, a girl. Then, on December 3, 2005, Pitt started the process to officially become the adoptive dad of Jolie’s first adopted child, a boy. Later, on January 19, 2006, a judge in California allowed Jolie to change their children’s last names to “Jolie-Pitt.” The adoptions were completed not long after.

Their daughter was born in Swakopmund, Namibia, on May 27, 2006. Pitt mentioned that their new daughter could get a Namibian passport. They sold the first photos of their daughter through Getty Images. People magazine bought the rights for over $4.1 million in North America, and Hello! magazine got the British rights for around $3.5 million. They gave all the money from the sale to charities helping African kids. Also, a wax statue of their two-month-old daughter was revealed at Madame Tussauds in New York, which was the first time a baby got a statue there.

On March 15, 2007, Jolie adopted a three-year-old boy from an orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Pitt then adopted the boy in the US on February 21, 2008.

In May 2008, at the Cannes Film Festival, Jolie announced she was pregnant with twins. She gave birth to a son and a daughter on July 12, 2008, in Nice, France. The first photos of the twins were sold to People and Hello! for $14 million, making them the most expensive celebrity pictures ever taken. All the money went to the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

Since Angelina Jolie filed for divorce from Brad Pitt on September 19, 2016, they’ve been fighting over custody of their kids. Jolie had full custody until May 2021, when Pitt was given joint custody, more than four years after the process started. But then, in July, a judge in Los Angeles was taken off the case because he hadn’t revealed his connections to Pitt’s lawyers properly. So, the custody deal went back to how it was in November 2018, where Jolie has the kids most of the time, and Pitt gets visitation.

Abuse allegation

In 2016, the FBI and the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services looked into claims of child abuse against Brad Pitt. It happened on a plane, where someone said Pitt was mean to one of his kids. But neither the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services nor the FBI charged Pitt with a crime.

In 2022, Angelina Jolie fought back against Pitt in a legal battle over a vineyard they once owned together. Jolie’s side said Pitt wanted her to sign a paper that would stop her from talking about him hurting her and their kids outside of court. Jolie said Pitt grabbed and shook her on the plane, choked one of their kids, and hit another in the face, among other things.

Alcoholism

Back in September 2016, Brad Pitt decided to stop drinking and started going to meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous. Then, in December 2019, he wrote an article for Interview magazine where he chatted with his old movie buddy, Anthony Hopkins, about their struggles with addiction and how they’ve been getting better. Pitt says that Bradley Cooper, another actor, has been a big help in keeping him on track with his decision to stay sober.

Cannabis use

Brad Pitt has said that back in the late 1990s, he used marijuana to cope with becoming super famous. He explained, “I was trying to avoid all the attention; I was smoking a lot of weed; I was just sitting around and not doing much.” But after a visit to Morocco and seeing how tough life could be for some people, he cut back on smoking and got more serious about his work.

Prosopagnosia

In 2022, Brad Pitt opened up about having a tough time remembering faces because of a condition called prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness. He mentioned in a 2013 interview that it got so bad he sometimes preferred staying home. But it’s important to note that he hasn’t been formally diagnosed with prosopagnosia.

Public image

Brad Pitt is famous. He’s been called a hottie by lots of people, like Empire magazine and People magazine. They even said he’s one of the sexiest stars in movie history. People magazine even named him the sexiest man alive in 1995 and 2000.

He’s also super powerful in Hollywood. Forbes put him on their list of the 100 most powerful celebrities from 2006 to 2008. Time magazine also thinks he’s a big deal. They put him on their list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007 and 2009.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s relationship was a huge deal too. Everyone talked about them all the time. When Angelina got pregnant in 2006, people went crazy. They even flew to Namibia to have their baby, trying to avoid all the media attention.

They couldn’t escape the spotlight, though. When Angelina was pregnant again in 2008, reporters and photographers followed them everywhere, even to the hospital.

People really like Brad and Angelina. A survey found that they were the favorite celebrities for endorsing products all around the world. Brad has been in lots of commercials too, like for Heineken during the Super Bowl in 2005. He even has a minor planet named after him!

Net Worth

Brad Pitt’s Net Worth is estimated to be $400 Million as of 2024, according to Celebrity Net Worth.

Brad Pitt is one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors, but he doesn’t just rely on his acting. He’s made smart moves as a producer with his company, Plan B. Plus, he’s made a lot of money from big endorsements with brands like Chanel, Brioni, De’Longhi, Honda, Heineken, SoftBank, Cadillac, Edwin Jeans, and his skincare line, Le Domaine.

Recently, Pitt has been selling some of his assets for huge amounts of money. In December 2022, he sold a 60% stake in Plan B for what’s believed to be “hundreds of millions of dollars.” Then, in March 2023, he sold his Los Feliz estate for $39 million.

However, Pitt’s earnings aren’t without expenses. He’s faced several lawsuits, including one involving his Make It Right Foundation over claims of faulty home construction in New Orleans. Legal battles are costly, no matter the outcome.