As a tale of two brothers, the differences couldn’t be more stark.
While movie A-lister Josh Brolin luxuriates in his $7.1 million Montecito compound, sibling Jess sits slumped on a bench waiting for a free trolley just 45 mins away – as revealed in exclusive Daily Mail pictures.
The sons of Hollywood royalty James Brolin, 85, who lives with third wife Barbra Streisand in a $20 million Malibu mansion, have so little in common it’s even hard to spot the family resemblance.
With alarming red blotches on his legs and weighing an estimated 350lbs, Jess cuts a forlorn figure as he scans his basic flip phone before hauling himself up for the arrival of a bus in Ojai, California.
The 53-year-old is believed to be still living in the town’s three-star Topa Vista Hotel after dragging himself off the streets from where he descended after his trust fund ran out.
Dressed in what appear to be the same faded blue denim shorts as when he was last photographed by the Daily Mail, Jess was on his way to an event at a local school on Sunday.
While movie A-lister Josh Brolin luxuriates in his $7.1 million Montecito compound, sibling Jess (pictured) sits slumped on a bench waiting for a free trolley just 45 mins away.
With alarming red blotches on his legs and weighing an estimated 350lbs, Jess cuts a forlorn figure as he scans his basic flip phone before hauling himself up for the arrival of a bus in Ojai, California
The 53-year-old is believed to be still living in the town’s three-star Topa Vista Hotel after dragging himself off the streets from where he descended after his trust fund ran out
After a two-minute ride on the bus, Jess clambered off at the school, where he was met by a woman who escorted him inside.
The Daily Mail has previously revealed that the troubled Brolin sibling has been staying at the Topa Vista, which sits on a busy highway and is owned by LA nightclub mogul Steve Edelson.
However modest his home might be by Hollywood standards, it’s still a considerable upgrade on his previous digs.
In 2011, he was living out of a battered 1981 Toyota truck after the trust fund he inherited from his and Josh’s late mother Jane Agee ran out.
Three years later the truck fell apart and Jess was reduced to bedding down in the street. At one point he was photographed raiding a dumpster for food.
His mother, the first of dad James’s three wives, was killed in a car crash in 1995, a decade after her divorce from the veteran actor.
While he was homeless, stepmom Streisand said the family had attempted to help but Jess had rejected their offers.
She said in a statement: ‘We love him very much and want only he best for him.’
But as Jess was catching the free trolley this weekend, brother Josh was photographed surfing in Santa Barbara and sporting a huge tattoo on his back.
It is not known if the inked image of a lighthouse framed by topless mermaids is a real tat.
In June, Josh was spotted with eye-popping fake artwork on his toned physique while on the set of the forthcoming thriller Whalefall.
The brothers were brought up in the height of luxury on a ranch in Paso Robles and then a Santa Barbara mansion.
Meanwhile, his brother Josh was photographed surfing in Santa Barbara and sporting a huge tattoo on his back
The 57-year-old owns a $7.1 million Montecito compound nearby
The sons of Hollywood royalty James Brolin, 85, who lives with third wife Barbra Streisand (pictured) in a $20 million Malibu mansion, have so little in common it’s even hard to spot the family resemblance
Yet while Josh went on to cement his pedigree in the Avengers and Men in Black franchises among other hit roles, his younger brother was in just two movies and became a studio runner for a while.
Josh’s fame has bought him the mansion in Harry-and-Meghan town Montecito where he lives in splendor with wife Kathryn Boyd.
Yet despite his gilded background, like his brother he has had his share of drama to say the least.
The No Country for Old Men star revealed in his memoir From Under the Truck, published in November 2024, that he had an ‘unconventional childhood’.
He also recounted struggles with addiction and sobriety that led him to be jailed a total of nine times, including twice before landing his breakout role in kids adventure movie The Goonies.
The three-times married star, once wed to actress Diane Lane, revealed he lost his best friend at an early age to suicide – and once went on a 12-hour acid trip as a teenager that turned bad.
Now sober for many years, he wrote that he spent his early teenage years juggling two identities. At night he was a cook in an Italian restaurant and by day he ran with a fast crowd.
He rode a motorcycle aged four, smoked weed at nine, lost his virginity at 11 and did acid at 13.
But while his fellow hell raisers crashed and burned, his lifeline was acting. Yet despite the breaks, he ended up in a flophouse in Portland, Oregon in 1990 and in a ‘rented cell’ in New York City two years later.
A career resurgence in 2007 with the Coen brothers’ No Country set him on the path to an Academy Award nomination for Milk a year later and his transition into blockbuster franchises.
His memoir recounts how he is still haunted by ‘the perpetual apparition of Jane,’ the late mother who was a casting director turned wildlife activist. ‘She refuses to not be a presence,’ he wrote.
Maybe if she had survived, who knows where his troubled brother might be now.
