He's not exactly a poster boy for misery. But the world heavyweight of sexy and sometimes superhero, Brad Pitt has a dark side. The Moneyball star spoke out recently to the Hollywood Reporter about his battle with depression throughout the '90s —a time, ironically, during which Pitt stared in some of the biggest box office films such as Fight Club, 12 Monkeys, Seven and The Devil's Own.
"I got really sick of myself at the end of the 1990s," admitted Pitt, a contender for Best Actor in the forthcoming Oscars. "I was hiding out from the celebrity thing, I was smoking way too much dope...[I was] numbing myself to sleep—the same routine: Couldn’t wait to get home and hide out. But that feeling of unease was growing and one night I just said, ‘This is a waste.’"
It just goes to show that even someone as seemingly 'together' as Brad, who on the face of it has absolutely everything in life—wealth, looks, Jen—can secretly be falling apart.
A UK-based charity known as Rethink Mental Illness commended Pitt for speaking so candidly about mental illness, an experience which he termed a "great education."
"Mental illness can happen to any of us at any time, whether famous or not, rich or poor," explained Mark Davies, director of communications at Rethink. "Sadly, it can sometimes be difficult to talk about, even though people with mental illness need as much compassion and support as people with physical health problems."
The charity hopes that having someone like Pitt admit to the illness will give others "renewed hope" of recovery.
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