Brad Pitt GQ Style Cover Story
Ryan McGinley exclusively for GQ Style
Brad Pitt, the cover boy of GQ Style‘s summer edition, opens up about moving forward to become a better man.
The interview — released Wednesday (May 3) — features a photo spread of Pitt vulnerably posing at The Everglades, White Sands, and Carlsbad Caverns. The actor discusses rebuilding after his divorce drama with Angelina Jolie, his upcoming Netflix project War Machine, and how music played a part in his spiritual growth as well as quitting drinking.
Pitt revealed that he’s recently been listening to Frank Ocean, who he called “very, very special” and “painfully honest,” and Marvin Gaye‘s Here My Dear. The actor called his Marvin Gaye selection “ironic,” as the 1978 album is centered around the singer’s divorce from his first wife, Annie Gordy Gaye.
When asked about his ideas on pain, Pitt recalled encountering an African woman who lost nine relatives, and as a result carried a heavy laugh unlike anything he heard before. That prompted him to confess his understanding for R&B, saying “I just got R&B for the first time. R&B comes from great pain, but it’s a celebration. To me, it’s embracing what’s left. It’s that African woman being able to laugh much more boisterously than I’ve ever been able to.”
Pitt also admitted that he just started therapy, after having to go through two therapists to find the right fit. Whether his recent need for some solace — in music and human form — is a result of the “weird” last six months of his life, he suggests that it’s likely more just life catching up to him. “I think it would have come knocking, no matter what.”
GQ issued three different covers for Pitt’s feature piece. See all three below.