Brad Pitt Met His ‘Greatest’ Love When She Was Just 16 and Unknown to the World | “I Still Love the Woman”

Brad Pitt has dated several A-listers in Hollywood but not many remember his romance with Juliette Lewis. The 59-year-old actor met Lewis on the set of their television film Too Young to Die? and dated from 1989 to 1993. At the time Lewis was just 16 years old and Pitt was ten years older than her. The pair also costarred in Kalifornia but after three years they broke up.

“I still love the woman. There’s some real genius there. I had a great time with her,” Pitt told Vanity Fair. “Look, I don’t want to go into an explanation. She has her own views, and I respected those views. She does know people. It was one of the greatest relationships I’ve ever been in. The problem is, we grow up with this vision that love conquers all, and that’s just not so, is it?”

“We're like at the point in love, where we just like to see each other every single day and we don't get bored with each other, so it's really, really nice,” Lewis told the L.A. Times in ’93. Pitt, too, was excited. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button star told the publication, “You want to keep your careers your careers and your love your love, but we just wanted to do it more for a vacation." 

At the time they loved dating each other because fame did not yet affect them. They enjoyed time together as young aspiring actors. "It was such a lovely time in my life — well, in both of our lives — because we were anonymous," Lewis recalled in an interview with Blackbook in 2009. They spent time together in their shared bungalow on Melrose, enjoying each other's company. Soon they became the talk of the town, often photographed together on red carpets, and considered to be one of the hottest couples of the early 1990s.

Over the years after their split, the couple remained amicable but Lewis isn't too keen on being asked about her megastar ex. In 2014, Lewis told PEOPLE that most press about her when she was younger was "usually about Brad Pitt" which "hasn't been me since I was 22. I'm 40. I quit all my bulls— at 22. There is growth. Get out of the past." The actress was often chased by the paparazzi during her relationships with Pitt as well as Johnny Depp. At the time she said she never truly shared what she felt but after she turned 40 she decided to express herself. “I used to be really insular, really introverted, spoke very little words,” she shared. “I couldn’t articulate myself.”

“I took five years off of movies, just making music and touring,” she said in 2014. “I am mid-life, and this is a new chapter for me.”

References:

https://people.com/celebrity/juliette-lewis-at-40-i-quit-my-bull-at-22/

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-01-03-ca-1095-story.html

https://blackbookmag.com/nightlife/juliette-lewis-is-a-natural-born-rebel/

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/1995/02/brad-pitt-199502

Cover Image Source: Getty Images (L) Photo by Diane Freed (R) Photo by Scott Gries