Brad Pitt Owns This Article

Hey there. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host, Molly McPherson. Before we get into the Brad Pitt cover, 2 things first before we get started. The divorce between Brad Pitt and former wife Angelina Jolie, that was finalized in December 2024. Some of the coverage says that it's still ongoing. It's not. Also, there's been a lot of reports about what happened in that airplane incident. Uh, there was an investigation, everything was dropped. There's a lot of stories on both sides. Only Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie know what happened along with their kids. And I'm not here to rule on any of that. The story I wanna talk about is this profile of Brad Pitt titled A Monday with Brad Pitt. And certainly it's an article That puts him in a very glamorous, glamorous light. The article opens with 2 dogs, and you really can't go wrong talking about 2 dogs at all, or being a dog owner. I say this as a dog owner, and you may hear my dog in the background. But the very first opening beat of this piece by writer Ryan D'Agostino, who's written a lot of celebrity profiles for Esquire, magazine, including Brad Pitt buddy George Clooney and also Bruce Springsteen. D'Agostino is a very good writer. He also knows the assignment. The assignment is to project Brad Pitt in a certain way. So he fulfills the assignment and then some. I want to get into the why behind what we see in this profile. But the first line, the dogs are trying to escape, shoving their noses Through his knees and climbing all over each, each other, attempting to paw their way out of the glass door. So we learned that Brad Pitt lives— in the article, we know— for not very long in a new house. The whole entryway is solid glass. So that is added into the story as a choice. So we are seeing into the world of Brad Pitt, literally and figuratively. So then he talks more about the dogs, and Brad Pitt comes to the door wearing a t-shirt the color of egg yolk. Now, I'm going to pause here for a moment. So much of this profile has details, surgical-like precision in detailing things about Brad Pitt and his life, his home, and his dogs. It's the detail that I pay attention to because there's an abundance of it. Then there's a lack of it. So moving on with the article, then D'Agostino quotes Brad here, quote, you'll get mildly molested for a couple of minutes, then they'll leave you alone. That's about the dogs, but it also highlights or telegraphs what Brad Pitt might think about the critics as well. And that's why I think this profile exists. It's there to lay everything bare, you think. Not really. So you learn a lot about Brad Pitt, but you learn about the things that don't really matter. But there's so many details that you think you're getting a lot of information about Brad Pitt. So we know that the 2 doodles, and of course Brad Pitt has doodles, they're not pit bulls, they're not German shepherds, they're doodles named Sunday, as in hot fudge, And Vandy. And he says they came with the name. So now the dogs are satisfied and they're no longer interested. So that's also supposed to be to you, to the critics out there, to the public. You may be interested for a moment and you may wanna molest the name of Brad Pitt, but your job is to go away once this information is fed to you. Am I thinking too deep here? Am I? I don't know, maybe, but I'll let you be the judge on that. So now we finally have, by way of an introduction, quote, hey, Brad. As he says this, he cocks his head back just a click and his famous golden hair sways and he smiles a smile. Details, details, details. All right. So then the writer comes into the room and then we find out more about the house and where Brad Pitt Sits down the writer. Quote, guests get the view. That's the rule. So he motions the seat for D'Agostino, the writer. Then, and don't worry, I'm not going to go line by line this entire profile. I just want to highlight the lines that matter here because these lines aren't just lines.

They're moves.

He retrieves 2 small bottles of Perrier from the fridge and grabs us each a paper towel. Because he doesn't know where the napkins are. So the writer says, I'm getting the royal treatment. And then Brad Pitt says, just another day at the Pitts'. Plural. That could be the doodles and Brad. It could be Brad and the girlfriend, but it's an intentional plural, in my opinion. And that's the whole strategy here. We are in a house that is temporary. In the story, we don't know if it's rented or if he's only there. for a little bit of the time, but there's glass everywhere. You can see straight in. But this is what Dr. Abby Medcalf thinks of this article. And this is the quote, uh, the article, it's crap, but the pictures are phenomenal. And boy, do Abby and I agree on that. The photos in this article are incredible. The wardrobe, the jewelry, the accessories. Brad Pitt looks amazing. He looks a little edgy. I mean, the wardrobe is incredible, what he's wearing. He has Valentino, he's wearing a jacket by The Row. I, I, the green and the pink and the yellow, it's incredible. Um, but also then he's partying and he looks like he's in a house party. And then the photo of him on the floor with confetti. So he's on the ground collapsed. But then we see photos of him drinking and also smoking. Those photos are incongruent to what he's trying to do in this article, and that's why it's so interesting. These photos, I believe, are trying to project exactly who Brad Pitt is as he's trying to reframe the narrative in the article. I call this Esquire profile a reputation reset. Brad Pitt has been at this game for decades. He is a well-known A-list name other than the divorce, the acrimonious divorce with Angelina Jolie, and certainly the stories about, uh, his kids and they're no longer using his name. Uh, the breakup with Jen Aniston, you know, America's sweetheart. And we have Friends still in replay right now in new generations. Are watching it and they're seeing Brad Pitt when he guest starred on the show with Jen Aniston. He certainly had some big PR crisis hits there, but anecdotally, I'm just gonna say, uh, bias here. I think he sailed through them. I mean, he certainly has his dings and people definitely have opinions about him, but the proof is in his work. He is still, as they say in this article, in the top 1%. of actors in Hollywood. Fair or not, that's where he resides. August is a news desert, but September is the profile month. This September dropped in August, specifically August 10th. So quick rewind for both sides. Lizzo, a few years ago, that lawsuit came out because we were in a news desert and there wasn't any other news competing with the Lizzo story. That was the only story, Lizzo, and it never went away. And she still has not recovered from that. Last summer in August, if you remember, that's when Taylor Swift was announcing the album was coming out and she was on the podcast with her then soon-to-be fiancé and his brother, the Kelce brothers. And all the buzz was surrounding Taylor Swift. On the other side of the spectrum, you had Blake Lively. She was still suffering from the backlash from the It Ends With Us that happened the August before that. So August can be a particularly persnickety month, good or bad. Now, so many people are talking about this cover story, but they're not talking about the byline. And the byline is part of the plan. Now, the writer was Ryan D'Agostino. He's the editorial director of projects at Hearst. He's a former editor-in-chief of Popular Mechanics and former articles editor at Esquire. So look at some of the recent profiles written by D'Agostino. Uh, Brad Pitt's August 10th. Dwayne Johnson was June 11th. Charles Melton, April 28th. Tim Cook. Also Bruce Springsteen and George Clooney, buddy of Brad Pitt. So this is a writer who falls in the safe bucket. This is a writer who understands the assignment, which is to turn this into a profile, not an exposé on all the problems of Brad Pitt. But written in a way to make the problems that Brad Pitt has go away. Now, here's where I noticed some incongruency or disharmony in the article. I showed you all the photos. I mean, they're absolutely— I mean, they're almost iconic. I mean, I think they are absolutely beautiful. They're stunning. But the words in the profile are screaming ordinary man, kid from Missouri does good. But the photos say otherwise. The photos say big Hollywood, somewhat reckless star. So the same people approved both the imagery and the content. Now look at some of the details that are in the story. The charcuterie board. The writer takes so much time to explain how Brad Pitt is constructing the charcuterie board for their interview.

Writer notes.

No staff, just Brad. Also, when they walk over to the part of the living room that has the view, there's 2 chairs set up. The writer gets the chair with the view. And then I mentioned the 2 bottles of water. Every one of those details is a deposit into the I'm thriving here bucket. It's the softest version Available of Brad Pitt. That's how you can sum up this entire profile. Also, he's 62 years old. There's a lot of time spent on Brad Pitt's age. The subhead frames him in the top 1% of the top 1% of movie stars ever. He's up here. The writer puts him here. Brad does a different job of putting himself in a much different place, and that's what's happening throughout this profile. It's Brad's own framing. There's a difference between reset and rescue. Brad Pitt is not apologizing for anything. He is telling you everything in this profile on his own terms. He is the reputation he's trying to change in the same article, Abby.

But is he trying to change it in the same article? I don't think so. I think it's a big middle finger to everyone. That's what I got when I walked away. I was like, oh, it's kind of like when I saw Paul McCartney sing last October and he did a bunch of songs I didn't know. And I'm like, Paul McCartney, I know every song he's ever written and I don't know half of these. And I realized he's up there like, I'm 83, I'm going to sing what I want. You're going to pay good money to see me and screw you all. Like, with love. But this is how it is. You're getting what I decide now. I did your stuff for years. Now you're getting what I decide.

Here are The PR moves that are the details you are supposed to pick up on if you read this article. Here we go. Quote: We pull down the little Perriers pretty quick, and I point out that he offered me wine earlier. The writer mentions wine, not Brad Pitt, the writer. So D'Agostino opens the gate for Brad Pitt to walk through to discuss. Wine, and also Brad didn't mention it, and that's important. Now here we go. We walk right into it. So now we so now the article mentions that at the Academy Awards in 2020, Brad Pitt thanked his friend Bradley Cooper for helping him get sober. That's an important word: sober, not to cut down on drinking, but to get sober. Then he talked more deeply about sobriety on Dax Shepard's podcast Armchair Expert, and if you've watched or listened to that podcast, Shepard goes very, very deep into his recovery and the struggle. So Brad Pitt choosing that at that time matters. But now here we are, fast forward 2026. And this is what Brad says in the article, quote, no, I got, I got sober for 7 years and then I got back off the wagon. Holds a finger up. In a more restrained manner, I got overconfident a couple times, went, yep. Nope. Not good for me. Not in big quantities. You can have a glass of wine. Now, this next quote did not get past Dr. Abby. See if you can pick it up. This is Brad Pitt. Quote, yeah, well, I can have a few, but I can't have a lot.

He said a few. I want you to just think when you're drinking, do you have a few or do you have one or two? Like normally people have 1 or 2.

Some antics.

Yes. When they're drinking. So, and I always hear with people who have drug and alcohol, as soon as I hear a few, I go, cuz most people when they're socially drinking have 1 or 2 glasses of whatever.

Now frame that with 2016. That's when the plane story came out. An 8-week child welfare investigation. A federal FBI review. Now, the case, both sides closed, and there were no findings of abuse against him, no charges at all. And if you read articles from that time, there was a lot of back and forth. You know, People magazine says this and ET says this. We had Angelina's side, we had Brad Pitt's side. Nothing came from that, but it left residue for Brad Pitt regarding his drinking. Now, it should also be said that if you look online, you don't have to go that deep. You can see that there is a lot of commentary where people talk about Brad Pitt and drinking. There's a number of stories out there alleged. I can't say if that's true or not, but it is a framing that kind of sticks with him, which is why this article in particular is so interesting, watching what he's trying to do to skirt around it. So here's the move here. We went from water to wine, non-Bible reference, but then Brad Pitt reveals how he feels about drinking now and how he approaches drinking. The move here is this: when someone answers a question you didn't ask, ask yourself who asked it. Why did this even need to come up?

Because.

Brad Pitt wanted to say it. There are a number of things in this profile that Brad Pitt wanted to say, and the writer made sure that he did. For example, he mentioned not watching porn. Why is that a line that needs to be in this profile at all? Perhaps to show that he's not sexually reckless. Then he does so much name checking. Colin Farrell, J.K. Simmons, Kate Winslet, Brando, Robert Redford, Kiefer Sutherland. Brad Pitt makes himself smaller on purpose. James Gandolfini. He's throwing out all these people. He wants to minimize his importance and remind people of how he views himself, not as too big, but quite small. He also frames himself as someone who falls asleep most nights watching TV. Just like you and me. Then there's another piece of the story that I think he intentionally wedges in there, but he doesn't really want you to notice it because that's not what people are going to pick up on. That's not what the news articles are going to pick up, pick up on. Hollywood trade magazines might pick up on it down the road, but I think it was intentionally buried because it's a very dicey, almost third rail topic in Hollywood. And that's AI. And this was quite buried. He says AI will help mid-budget films in the $40 to $90 million range, you know, because he does have a production company. That's a big part of the Brad Pitt portfolio. But in the same article, he hedges a bit and talks about the importance of having human voices in the art. Now, here's the proof. Muck Rack shows that nobody covered The AI line. He planted a story about drinking and Hollywood ate it up. But the story that's probably more poisonous for Hollywood is AI. And that, my friends, got buried, which is either very lucky or very deliberate. So this is where things get a little more difficult for Brad Pitt, because Brad and his publicist can control the publication, the writer, The room, the vocabulary, uh, the release. But the one area that he couldn't touch is family, his family, his former wife, his kids. He called it family stuff. We could leave it at that. So there's no press release, there's no interview, there's no publicist interfering here. It's just a simple paperwork decision. It's in a 22-minute article, and it comes down. To family stuff. There's no accountability. There's no apologizing. There's no change in behavior. Now, everyone is afforded their privacy around very personal matters, particularly with family. I would say if I were working with Brad Pitt, just so he could stop this narrative from trailing him, it's like a residue that you cannot get off. It's a sticky residue. If he needs to address the kid behavior, reasonable people will understand that kids turn on their parents, but also reasonable people can understand that maybe with drinking problems, that Brad could be the problem in this. But there are reasonable people also who might think, well, Angelina Jolie is an actress after all. You know, it's not like she's Angie from the block. She's Angelina Jolie. She has publicists, she has teams, she's putting stories out there. So she's not perfectly clean in this. I mean, we don't know exactly what she's doing, but we can absolutely assume because her statements go out to People Magazine, ET, Access Hollywood as well. She's playing the same game as Brad, as Brad Pitt. But the kids are aligned with Angelina Jolie. And she isn't really publicly saying a lot about it because there is a lot of pain there. And the The public will give you that privacy. But this is such an opportunity for Brad Pitt. He could, in an article like this, send an accountability message. People understand that kids ghost parents, especially if parents have addiction problems or there's abuse. We understand that it happens. And any parent who reflects and changes their behavior, but kids still ignore them, they can send out a message. And Brad Pitt certainly has a platform. My goodness, he has it in this Esquire magazine article. He could take accountability here. He could say things where their kids could read it as an apology. He doesn't have to, but he could, but he doesn't. But what Dr. Abby points out in our conversation is you want to look for the pattern.

I've never met a kid who, including myself, who didn't want their parent to just acknowledge the bad stuff, apologize for real, and then change their behavior.

Right.

Okay. Because that's what real apology is, that you then change what you're doing. Children literally changing their names. Talk about a huge— I mean, that's not just passive. That is a— right?

Proactive.

We are telling the world what, who this man really is without a press announcement, without anything else. We're not gossiping, but we're changing our name. And that says more than we could ever do in an interview.

Now let's look at the numbers from Muck Rack. I love a word cloud. A word cloud is showing us what the chatter and the dialogue around a story. In this case, you can see Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie dominate. But isn't it interesting? Angelina Jolie is never even mentioned in the profile. That means people are reading this profile and online. Either reporters or people on social media are chatting about Angelina Jolie. And the through line running under all of this is not AI. It's not the 2 films coming out. It's the drinking. So let's look at the numbers here more specifically. So August 10th, the day of the release, we have 1,500 articles. On the 11th, we have just over 1,300 articles. So that's down 10%. The engagement, look at this, the numbers down 91%, positive 24% down to 11%, and then the negative 58% to 71%. What's interesting to note there is the engagement just fell off the cliff, uh, with the same story with the goodwill. You have half of it one day later, and the word cloud is the tell. It's about The drinking. It's not about the film. It's not about AI. And 4 of the top headlines here you see from Fox News, Hollywood Reporter, E! It's about the relapse. It's not about the grief. It's not about his craft. It's not about the film. It's about the relapse. Now, you could look at these numbers and think, oh, what a flop. This article did not do what Brad Pitt wanted it to do. Look at that cliff in the drop. Honestly, I don't think he cares. I think the drop is intentional. Anybody, you could be a publicist for 15 minutes, you know everyone is going to pick up on the sobriety piece. Everyone is going to talk about that. It's going to be a huge shot out of a cannon type of effect on news coverage. But the drop means People have moved on. That's the August desert in play, but it's not continuous chatter because there are enough stories out there. Because this also dropped a couple days before primaries where there's a lot of chatter. Uh, there's constantly political chatter that's happening now, and there's a lot of things that are happening in breaking news. So this story spiking and then dropping is actually a good thing, and that's what I think Brad Pitt wants. Because this profile was not about setting a trend or being a long-tail story. It was about getting it on the record. Once it's on the record, he doesn't have to answer it again. If he starts doing a publicity tour for the next movie, I don't need to talk about it. I already talked about it. Refer back to the article in September. PR move. That's why I think this profile was for the purpose of a reputational Reset. He just needed a citation. He needed it on the record. It's not anything that he ever wants to talk about again. It went out, people talked about it for 48 hours, except for me. I'm talking about it a week later, and now it exists in Esquire as a citation. Brad Pitt can move on. So all in all, the question is, was this profile a good move? Did it work? From the numbers that I'm looking at provided by Muck Rack and just my experience looking at it, I would say yes, it did. He achieved the goal that he sought. He had to get something on the record. He wanted it in Esquire so people can refer back to it, but now he doesn't have to talk about it again. And it gives him a little bit of COVID in case He slips a little. Maybe he's a little tipsy during this red carpet interview, or maybe there's a little hiccup here or there, or maybe he and his girlfriend break up. People know, okay, he's drinking again, but it's not a mess. It's very controlled. But now we have our reason, but it still moves on. If you watch the entire interview with Dr. Abby, we spend a lot of time talking about the alcoholism. This is one part that's not good for him. And she lays that bare and makes it clear. The divorce took a lot out of him. I mean, he certainly made that clear in this article. But Brad Pitt drinking again is a problem because he is putting a narrative out there about how people can control drinking. Dr. Abby goes in depth about the drinking, that yes, people can control the drinking, but does it control the behavior?

Very little to do with not drinking anymore. It has to do with behavior change. It has to do with self-reflection. It has to, that's what we, where we draw the line, which I've said before, between dry and sober.

But it's still out there. He still has to carry it. And we'll see if it comes back to hurt him. If you want to check out the entire conversation I had with Dr. Abby, you will find it in my Substack. It's under the members only section there. Also on Thursday, August 20th, 4:00 PM Eastern time. It's the case file where we're looking at some of the PR stories that happened throughout August. Some of the topics we're talking about were brought up by the members, but all the little buzzy stories there, let's break them down case by case. And for my members, there will be communication trainings coming in September, October, and November. So you'll want to check those out. So if you haven't checked out Substack, I encourage you to go over there. You can find me at Molly McPherson. Not all of the content is paid. Actually, most of it is free, so I highly encourage you to check that out. I want to thank you for joining me this week on The PR Breakdown. Bye for now.