Cara Delevingne reveals she entered rehab after concerning 2022 paparazzi photos: 'I was not okay'

Cara Delevingne has revealed that she took on one of the most important roles of her life when she entered rehab and committed to a 12-step program late last year.

After the 30-year-old actress and model was photographed by paparazzi in September while looking disheveled and behaving erratically outside Los Angeles' Van Nuys Airport, the Only Murders in the Building star told Vogue that she checked herself into rehab amid fallout from the images, which served as a wake-up call for her to step back from drinking and confront deep personal issues she had avoided.

"I hadn't slept. I was not okay," she said of the photos, which were taken shortly after she returned from the Burning Man festival, and showed her smoking outside the terminal, pacing around outside barefoot, and hanging out the window of a black SUV. "It's heartbreaking because I thought I was having fun, but at some point it was like, okay, I don't look well. You know, sometimes you need a reality check, so in a way those pictures were something to be grateful for."

Amy Sussman/WireImage Cara Delevingne

The moment occurred weeks after Delevingne made headlines following the 2022 Billboard Music Awards, where she raised eyebrows for her peculiar interactions with rapper Megan Thee Stallion. Many drew comparisons between Dele­vingne and her mother, Pandora, who has bipolar disorder and is a recovering heroin addict, and the star eventually sought treatment.

"I've had interventions of a sort, but I wasn't ready," she said in her Vogue interview. "That's the problem. If you're not face-first on the floor and ready to get up again, you won't… I hadn't seen a therapist in three years. I just kind of pushed everyone away, which made me realize how much I was in a bad place. I always thought that the work needs to be done when the times are bad, but actually the work needs to be done when they're good. The work needs to be done consistently. It's never going to be fixed or fully healed, but I'm okay with that, and that's the difference."

During treatment, she engaged in a 12-step program she thought had a significant impact on her ongoing recovery. "Before I was always into the quick fix of healing, going to a weeklong retreat or to a course for trauma, say, and that helped for a minute, but it didn't ever really get to the nitty-gritty, the deeper stuff."

She continued, "This time I realized that 12-step treatment was the best thing, and it was about not being ashamed of that. The community made a huge difference. The opposite of addiction is connection, and I really found that in 12-step."

In addition to her season 2 stint on Only Murders in the Building, Delevingne currently stars on the new season of Amazon's streaming drama Carnival Row.

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