Brad Pitt Blamed Himself, Not Jennifer Aniston, For Their Marriage’s Failure

When Brad Pitt left Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie in 2005, many of the former Hollywood “it couple’s” fans were left wondering what could have prompted the “Troy” actor to leave the “Friends” star. While people loved to put all the blame on his “Mr. And Mrs. Smith” co-star Angelina Jolie, Pitt later hinted that he had his own personal reasons for ending his first marriage.

Pitt was notoriously silent after he left Aniston for Jolie in 2005. But the actor agreed to be interviewed by Esquire in 2013, where he revealed something about himself that might give fans a chance of closure, especially those who were still wondering what his innermost reasons were for leaving Aniston.

Back when he was still with Aniston, Pitt said he was a very different person, someone who likes to leave things unfinished. “I mean, I'm two credits short of graduating college. Two credits,” he told Esquire. “All I had to do was write a paper. What kind of guy is that? That guy scares me — the guy who always leaves a little on his plate.”

And he was dealing with drug issues as well. “For a long time, I thought I did too much damage — drug damage,” Pitt added. “I was a bit of a drifter. A guy who felt he grew up in something of a vacuum and wanted to see things, wanted to be inspired. I followed that other thing. I spent years f**king off. “

Naturally, it did not work out in the end. He said that a decade ago, he felt that he needed to change because he was burnt out. The interview happened in 2013, which meant that he was referring to year 2003, when he was still married to Aniston.

“But then I got burnt out and felt that I was wasting my opportunity,” Pitt described how he felt at that time. “It was a conscious change. This was about a decade ago. It was an epiphany — a decision not to squander my opportunities.”

But he started to change when he met his “Mr. And Mrs. Smith” co-star Angelina Jolie. At that time, he was no longer the guy who left things undone. “It is very important to me to see things through,” he explained.

According to Jean Black, Pitt’s makeup artist, the actor and Aniston care about each other. However, Jolie acted like the catalyst that Pitt needed to make that change.

“I think Brad was ready to soar when he met Angie,” Black said. “This is not to say anything negative about Jennifer. I was part of that and I know that he and Jen are very good friends and he cared deeply for her. But in Angie he saw a very adventurous person who was grabbing on to life and taking it to its nth degree. It was intriguing because I felt Brad had that in him and wanted to unleash it.”

Black’s assessment also coincided with Pitt’s statements during an earlier interview with Parade in 2011. “It became very clear to me that I was intent on trying to find a movie about an interesting life, but I wasn’t living an interesting life myself,” the actor said. “I think that my marriage [to actress Jennifer Aniston] had something to do with it.”

When the media misinterpreted Pitt’s statement to mean that Jennifer Aniston was dull, he clarified that it was not Jennifer who was the problem but himself. “The point I was trying to make is not that Jen was dull, but that I was becoming dull to myself — and that, I am responsible for,” Pitt explained.