Cara Delevingne Opens Up About How Her Viral Paparazzi Photos Were a ‘Reality Check’ & Helped Kick Her Addiction

Whether it’s championing important causes or opening up about their own struggles, celebrities have the opportunity to use their platform for good. Most recently, model and actress Cara Delevingne got candid about her journey with addiction in an interview with Vogue. In sharing her story, she hopes she can be an inspiration, or even bring a sense of hope, to anyone in a similar situation.

“Everyone has been affected by the disease of addiction, whether it’s themselves, someone they know…,” Delevingne told Vogue’s Fashion News Director Chioma Nnadi in a video interview. “It’s so much more complicated than what people make it out to be.”

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At the time the January interview took place, Delevingne was celebrating four months of sobriety. “It was my first sober Christmas, my first sober New Year, and honestly, it was the best time I’ve ever had,” she said. “I’m happy, I’m grateful, I’m so thankful that this is happening.”

In the interview, the Paper Towns star talked about the moment that led up to her decision to get sober. “That year I decided, it was my 30th, I was like, ‘Okay I’m gonna go crazy’ in a fun way. I went to Ibiza for three weeks, went to Burning Man, came back to go straight to work,” she recalled. When she returned, the paparazzi took pictures of her outside Van Nuys Airport that soon went viral. In the photos and videos, Delevingne is seen distressed and frantically moving around in circles.

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“It’s heartbreaking because I thought I was having fun, but at some point, it was like, ‘Okay, I don’t look well,’” she told the outlet after seeing the photos. “You know, sometimes you need a reality check, so in a way those pictures were something to be grateful for.”

According to Delevingne, before that moment, she wasn’t receptive to any kind of help. “There was a lot of people who were very worried, understandably so. I wasn’t really worried though, it didn’t matter how many people around me were like ‘Are you okay?’, ‘This isn’t good,’ ‘You need help.’ It didn’t matter, but that is the nature of the disease.”

She continued, “The resistance towards something is really how much more you need it. All I knew is if I was continuing to go down the road I was, I would either end up dead or doing something really, really stupid and that was scary.”

Delevingne, who seems to be enjoying life in a new light after getting sober, also had some advice for anyone experiencing the same struggles. Your life can, if you give yourself a chance to, really be who you are and sit in that uncomfortability,” she said. “Because my God it’s uncomfortable for a minute.” We’re applauding you for your honesty, Cara!

Before you go, click here to see celebrities who have struggled with drug or alcohol addiction.

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