Brad Pitt says 'face blindness' is why he struggles to be personable

Career actor Brad Pitt says he has trouble remembering new people and recognizing new faces, leading him to believe he has prosopagnosia – the inability to recognize people’s faces.

The 58-year-old movie star told GQ magazine that he worries his face blindness has led to the impression he is remote and “aloof, inaccessible, self-absorbed.”  

Although he thinks he has prosopagnosia, he admits to the interviewer Ottessa Moshfegh that he has never been formally diagnosed.

The World War Z actor got very excited when Moshfegh said her husband seems to suffer from it as well, crying: "Nobody believes me! I wanna meet another." 

The topic also came up in a 2013 interview with Esquire, where Pitt said that even if you’ve had a “real conversation” with him, your face will start fading from his memory as soon as you walk away.

“So many people hate me because they think I'm disrespecting them," he says, a similar anxiety to his more recent interview.

He tried to “copping” to his face blindness by asking people where they had met, but found it only made people angrier.

“But it just got worse. People were more offended. Every now and then, someone will give me context, and I'll say, 'Thank you for helping me,'” recalled Pitt.

“But I piss more people off. You get this thing, like, 'You're being egotistical. You're being conceited.' But it's a mystery to me, man. I can't grasp a face and yet I come from such a design/aesthetic point of view. I am going to get it tested."

“That’s why I stay at home,” he quipped.

“You meet so many damned people, and then you meet ‘em again.”

At the time, Pitt was married to fellow actress Angelina Jolie and living with their six kids. The power couple split in 2016 and declared legally single in April 2019, but are still in court over child custody and assets, reports Page Six.

“There's a constant chatter in our house, whether it's giggling or screaming or crying or banging,” he told Esquire then.

“I love it. I love it. I love it. I hate it when they're gone. I hate it.”