Cara Delevingne Talks About Substance Abuse and Entering 12-Step Program: 'I Was Not Okay'
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Arnold Jerocki/Getty Cara Delevingne
Cara Delevingne is speaking out about getting help.
In an interview for the April cover of Vogue, the model and actress shared that she entered a 12-step program after paparazzi photos last year gave her an urgent wake-up call, explaining that her behavior was tied to the pandemic's effect and her milestone 30th birthday last August.
"I hadn't slept. I was not okay," she told the magazine. "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."
But just as Delevingne was celebrating her birthday alongside her wide circle of friends with an elaborate Alice in Wonderland-themed fête, her world was crumbling.
"I always kind of knew that things were going to have to be different in my 30s, because the way that I was living was not sustainable," she said. "I told myself, 'I should be having such a good time. I've got all my friends here. I need to be enjoying this.' "
She continued, "The house I was staying in had a tower and I would just kind of lock myself in it instead. I barely left the room. There was this need for change, but I was fighting it so much. I was welcoming in this new time but I was also grieving. It was like a funeral for my previous life, a goodbye to an era. And so I decided I was going to party as hard as I could because this was the end."
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Annie Leibovitz/Vogue
By the next month, the Only Murders in the Building alum said she realized she needed help if she was going to turn a new page on her life and career.
"From September, I just needed support," she said. "I needed to start reaching out. And my old friends I've known since I was 13, they all came over and we started crying. They looked at me and said, 'You deserve a chance to have joy.' "
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Annie Leibovitz/Vogue Cara Delevingne
Delevingne soon entered rehab where she found an additional buttress thanks to a 12-step program.
"This process obviously has its ups and downs, but I've started realizing so much," the Carnival Row alum said. "People want my story to be this after-school special where I just say, 'Oh look, I was an addict, and now I'm sober and that's it.' And it's not as simple as that. It doesn't happen overnight…. Of course I want things to be instant — I think this generation especially, we want things to happen quickly — but I've had to dig deeper."
She added, "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. 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."
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
