INSIDE BRAD'S New Life

After taking a step back from Hollywood, Brad Pitt focuses on spending time with his kids and his girlfriend and making amends with Angelina Jolie

Every once in a while, he’ll pop up in an unexpected place. Looking impossibly young on a race track in Hungary. Driving through the French countryside in a lush commercial for De’Longhi’s new coffee machine. Standing under a tree in his vineyard, Château Miraval. And in late September, boarding a private jet in South Tyrol, Italy. The one place Brad Pitt hasn’t been seen lately is Hollywood. “He shut down production on his Formula 1 movie, Apex, because of the strike in late July,” says a source. “And since then, he’s basically disappeared from the public eye. He’s been chilling with his girlfriend [Ines de Ramon], traveling and focusing on other projects.”

And it turns out, he’s in no rush to get back. “Brad is telling friends that stepping away from the spotlight is the best thing he’s ever done,” the source says of the 59-year-old Oscar winner, who admitted last year that he believes his career is on its “last leg.” The much-needed pause comes after seven long years of bitterly battling his ex Angelina Jolie, 48, over custody of their kids, undergoing a personal reckoning over his addiction issues — and finding love again. “It’s sometimes been painful, but Brad has grown so much. He’s turned a corner in what he wants and is living a whole new life. He’s finally putting his wellbeing and his family first.”