41 celebrities who have been open about their sobriety

Yahoo

22-05-2025

Some celebrities are open about their sobriety.
For some, abstaining from alcohol and drugs comes after overcoming addiction. Others have different reasons.
Bradley Cooper, Tom Holland, Miley Cyrus, and more stars have spoken about their sobriety.
Some celebrities are open about personal hardships, like efforts to abstain from alcohol and drugs.
Actors like Jamie Lee Curtis, Bradley Cooper, and Anthony Hopkins have been sober for over a decade, while stars like Tom Holland and Lucy Hale have been candid about embarking on their sobriety journeys in recent years. Others, including Dax Shepard and Kelly Osbourne, have been honest about the challenges of maintaining their sober lifestyle.
Here are 41 celebrities who have spoken about their sobriety.
Anjelica Oswald contributed to an earlier version of this story.
Miley Cyrus
Cyrus spoke about her sobriety during a wide-ranging interview with Apple Music 1's Zane Lowe.
The singer said that she focuses on therapy, nutrition, and working out in the gym.
"Some of the brokenness I felt, I've really put myself back together," she said. "It's why I physically take such good care of myself."
"I've learned this about myself over the years: the sobriety, that's like, my God," Cyrus added. "I need it. I live for it. It's changed my entire life."
Bradley Cooper
Cooper has been sober since he was 29. He told GQ in 2013 that he got sober because he realized that "if I continued it, I was really going to sabotage my whole life."
Cooper played a musician struggling with addiction in 2018's "A Star Is Born," which he also directed. He told Variety that it was a "cathartic" experience.
"Anytime you're trying to tell the truth you need to go to places and use things that have happened to you, or you've read about or experienced," he said. "And that's all part of the beauty of turning whatever things you've gone through into a story. I find that to be very cathartic."
During an appearance on a 2023 episode of "Running Wild With Bear Grylls: The Challenge," Cooper said that he was "very lucky" to overcome his addictions.
Cooper also said he was grateful to be sober when he played Jackson Maine in "A Star Is Born."
"Thank goodness I was at a place in my life where I was at ease with all of that, so I could really let myself go," he said. "I've been very lucky with the roles I've had to play. It's been a real blessing. I hope I get to keep doing it."
Tom Holland
Holland spoke about his decision to become sober during an appearance on the podcast "On Purpose With Jay Shetty," released in July 2023.
After having a "very boozy December," the British actor chose to participate in Dry January. During that time, Holland found that he kept thinking about drinking, "and it just really scared me," to the point that he realized he has a dependency.
Holland said he was "definitely addicted to alcohol" and didn't know how to navigate social settings without drinking.
"I was really, really struggling and I started to really worry that maybe I had an alcohol problem. So I decided that I would wait until my birthday, which is June 1," the actor said. "I said to myself, 'If I can do six months without alcohol, then I can prove to myself that I don't have a problem.' And by the time I got to June 1, I was the happiest I've ever been in my life."
"It's honestly been the best thing I've ever done," Holland added. "I'm a year and a half into it now. It doesn't even cross my mind. I've found amazing replacements that I think are fantastic, ones that are also really healthy."
Holland's sobriety also led him to launch Bero, a premium non-alcoholic beer brand in 2024.
Jamie Campbell Bower
"12 and a half years ago I was in active addiction," the "Stranger Things" star wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, in July 2022. "Hurting myself and those around me who I loved the most. It got so bad that eventually I ended up in a hospital for mental health. I am now 7 1/2 years clean and sober."
"I have made many mistakes in my life, but each day is a chance to start again. Atone for mistakes and grow," he continued. "For anyone who wakes up thinking 'oh god not again' I promise you there's a way."
"I'm so grateful to be where I am, I'm so grateful to be sober," he said. "I'm so grateful to be. Remember, we are all works in progress."
Jessica Simpson
Simpson celebrated seven years of sobriety in November.
"I was at a place where I was literally spiraling with the alcohol and I was missing out on moments with my children, and then they were seeing me and they were very confused," Simpson said during an appearance on "The Kelly Clarkson Show" in 2020.
"I just wanted to be present and have clarity and be a good role model for my children, because I always wanted to be a good role model for the world, so why in the world would I be stuck in this cycle of having to wake up and have a drink before going to one of their school assemblies?" she continued.
"It got to the point where all of my life has escalated and I couldn't suppress it," Simpson said. "And alcohol, it wasn't working. It was making me completely check out."
The star said that when she stopped drinking, she had "so much clarity."
Eminem
Eminem, real name Marshall Mathers, almost died from an accidental overdose of the drug methadone in 2007. He later entered rehab and celebrated 12 years of sobriety in April 2020.
Eminem opened up about his addictions in a 2022 essay for XXL magazine, saying that drugs became "a part of the way I was living my life" once he got signed to a record label.
The rapper recounted going to Tijuana multiple times to get drugs like Vicodin because it was "so easy to go back and forth to do it."
He said the "heaviest drug usage and addiction spanned only about five years of my life." His addiction worsened following the release of "The Marshall Mathers LP," as he was readying for his "Encore" album.
"I was taking Vicodin, Valium, and alcohol," Eminem said.
At one point, the rapper said he was taking 75 to 80 Valiums "a night."
During an appearance on Paul Rosenberg's "Paul Pod" podcast in 2022, Eminem spoke about how his life changed when he got clean while working on his "Relapse" album.
"I remember when I first got sober and all the shit was out of my system, I remember just being, like, really happy and everything was fucking new to me again," he said. "It was the first album and the first time that I had fun recording in a long time."
Robert Downey Jr.
Robert Downey Jr. was arrested multiple times on drug-related charges over the span of a few years in the late '90s. He later spent time at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison and has focused on staying sober since.
"Job one is get out of that cave," he told Vanity Fair in 2014. "A lot of people do get out but don't change. So the thing is to get out and recognize the significance of that aggressive denial of your fate, come through the crucible forged into a stronger metal."
Rob Lowe
Rob Lowe received the Spirit of Sobriety award in 2015 to celebrate 25 clean years.
"Being in recovery has given me everything of value that I have in my life," Lowe said when accepting the award. "Integrity, honesty, fearlessness, faith, a relationship with God, and most of all gratitude. It's given me a beautiful family and an amazing career. I'm under no illusions where I would be without the gift of alcoholism and the chance to recover from it."
Calvin Harris
DJ and producer Calvin Harris told the BBC that he stopped drinking at 24 because it was affecting his work.
"I wasn't an alcoholic or anything like that, but it was clearly affecting what I do," he said. "My live shows are a million times better now. If you drink, you can't even remember if it's a good show or not — and that's probably for the best, because it would have been rubbish because I'd have been drunk and not making any sense."
Lucy Hale
Hale told Byrdie that she decided to quit drinking after spending a few years in the party scene.
"I'm just always trying to surround myself with better people and be the best version of myself possible," she said. "I know it sounds obnoxious to hear people say that, but why not?"
Hale celebrated three years of sobriety with an Instagram post in January 2025. Hale said that since choosing to abstain from alcohol, "I've experienced moments that can only be described as pure miracles and magic."
"I am deeply grateful every day—for the people who have been guiding lights, for a power greater than myself that loves me unconditionally, and for my own perseverance in not giving up," she wrote. "To all of you who have supported my journey, I have felt your love and it means everything to me."
Daniel Radcliffe
In a conversation with Marc Maron for his "WTF" podcast in 2015, Daniel Radcliffe opened up about his alcohol addiction.
"There was definitely a time when I was coming out of 'Potter' and I was into the real world, suddenly I was in a world where I'm not going to have that consistency anymore," he said. "I was pretty inconsolable on the last day of 'Potter.' I was really worried. I was living alone, and I think I was really freaked out ... I drank a lot, as has been recorded."
Lana Del Rey
In an interview with British GQ in 2012, Lana Del Rey spoke about her struggles with alcohol and drugs as an underage teen.
"That's really why I got sent to boarding school aged 14 — to get sober," she said. "I was a big drinker at the time. I would drink every day. I would drink alone. ... I knew it was a problem when I liked it more than I liked doing anything else."
She eventually ended up at a rehab center for drug and alcohol addicts when she was 18.
Ben Affleck
Affleck first checked into rehab in 2001 and has continued to work on his sobriety through the years. In March 2017, the actor took to his Facebook page to talk about going back to rehab.
"I have completed treatment for alcohol addiction; something I've dealt with in the past and will continue to confront," he wrote. "I want to live life to the fullest and be the best father I can be."
His ex-wife, Jennifer Garner, took him to rehab again in August 2018.
In a 2020 interview with The New York Times, Affleck named Bradley Cooper and Robert Downey Jr. as "guys who have been very supportive and to whom I feel a great sense of gratitude."
He also said that it "took me a long time to fundamentally, deeply, without a hint of doubt, admit to myself that I am an alcoholic."
Brad Pitt
In a 2017 interview with GQ, the actor talked about quitting drinking.
"I mean, we have a winery. I enjoy wine very, very much, but I just ran it to the ground," he said. "I had to step away for a minute. And truthfully I could drink a Russian under the table with his own vodka. I was a professional. I was good."
Kristin Davis.
Davis spoke with Health magazine about her addiction in 2010.
"I'm a recovering alcoholic," she said. "I've never hid it, but I've been sober the whole time I've been famous, so it wasn't like I had to go to rehab publicly."
Keith Urban
Keith Urban told Rolling Stone in 2016 that he turned to drugs and drinking in the late '90s.
"I stepped up my drinking. I started doing more drugs," he said. "Yeah, man. The whole back end of the '90s were just awful."
He added: "You know, early on in my sobriety, there was a period when I wished I hadn't succumbed to drugs and everything the way I did. It sucked up so much creative time, when I should have been in the studio working. But I don't know what came from that time, other than that I'm where I am because of, or in spite of, nobody knows and never will."
Joe Manganiello
"I battled with addiction at a young age and got to the other side of that," he told Haute Living in 2015. "That's an ongoing battle. I think there's a story in there somewhere about trying to find my way through that and making it to where I am today."
In 2018, he accepted a Spirit of Sobriety award.
"Sixteen years ago … I crashed and washed ashore on the banks of sobriety," he said. "When I was growing up, when I thought of an alcoholic, I thought of some toothless old guy in a trench coat in a basement somewhere. I just never thought that would apply to me. That type of stigma kept me from getting the help that I needed when I knew I needed it."
Gerard Butler
Butler spoke to Men's Journal in 2012 about being 15 years sober then. He said he went to rehab before he could reach full-blown pill addiction.
"Maybe a stronger person wouldn't have needed to go," he said. "When you hear the word rehab, you think, 'He's a mess, he's fucked up.' But I'm glad I did it. I've made a shitload of wrong decisions in my life. But I know I've made some right ones as well."
Tobey Maguire
In 2003, the actor opened up to Playboy about being a recovering alcoholic and going to Alcoholics Anonymous.
"It's just all practical," he said. "There are no holes in the program. It's so, so simple. I come in, I ask for help. It has totally changed my life."
Russell Brand
Brand went on "Megyn Kelly Today" to discuss his recovery in 2017. He previously had an addiction to heroin and alcoholism.
"When I started, I took it one day at a time," he said. "Ultimately, I found that spirituality worked for me."
He celebrated 20 years of sobriety in December 2022.
"I'm 20 years clean and sober today," the comedian said on Instagram. "Thank you to all the people who have helped me to remain clean. It's never done on your own."
Ewan McGregor
Ewan McGregor has been sober since 2001. He told Playboy in 2005 that he stopped drinking before it could ruin his life.
"I knew I was lucky, and somehow I knew that if I didn't stop, everything would go tits up — my career, my family, my everything," he said.
Naomi Campbell
Vogue reported that the model didn't know if she'd make it through the early 2000s.
"The time between 1998 and 2005 was especially bad," she said. "During that time I avoided looking in the mirror, because I didn't like the person who was looking back at me. To be honest, there were times I thought I wouldn't survive. I used to have a lot of problems. Amongst others I drank too much so I joined Alcoholics Anonymous to get and stay sober."
She is also a member of Narcotics Anonymous.
"It doesn't matter what walk of life — addiction and alcoholism doesn't discriminate," she said at the Fortune Most Powerful Women International Summit in 2017.
Colin Farrell
During an appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in 2017, Farrell celebrated his recovery. Farrell reportedly checked into rehab again in 2018 as a preventive measure when he began to feel urges, according to The Sun.
He spoke about getting clean in a 2021 interview with The Irish Times, saying: "After 15 or 20 years of carousing the way I caroused and drinking the way I drank, the sober world is a pretty scary world."
"To come home and not to have the buffer support of a few drinks just to calm the nerves, it was a really amazing thing," Farrell added.
Tim McGraw
Tim McGraw quit drinking in 2008 when his family and friends began to worry about him.
"When your wife tells you it's gone too far, that's a big wake-up call," he told Men's Health."That, and realizing you're gonna lose everything you have. Not monetarily, not career-wise, but family-wise. I drank too much. I partied too much. And did other things too much."
Tom Hardy
Hardy has been sober since he was 25. The actor sobered up in 2003 by using a 12-step program. He told Esquire it was his "first port of call."
"It was hard enough for me to say, 'I'm an alcoholic,'" he said. "But staying stopped is fucking hard."
Kelly Osbourne
Osbourne relapsed in 2021, after almost four years of sobriety.
"I am an addict and had thought that I had enough time under my belt and I could drink like a normal person, and it turns out I cannot and I will never be normal," Osbourne told Extra at the time.
"This is something I am going to battle for the rest of my life," she added. "It's never going to be easy."
She celebrated one year of sobriety the following year.
"What a difference a year can make!" she wrote on Instagram. "If you would have told me 365 days ago that I would be sober, happy, and about to be a mumma I would have laughed in your face. Life is truly amazing when you do the work. Thank you to everyone that has supported me on this journey."
John Goodman
Goodman struggled with alcoholism for years and even drank while filming the original "Roseanne." At one point, star Roseanne Barr confronted him about it.
While on Howard Stern's SiriusXM show in March 2018, Goodman said, "She was scared for me, but she was more confrontational. She'd already had a husband go through the process."
He added: "The last four years were pretty bad, and I was drinking at work and [Barr] was scared for me. I was ashamed of myself, but I couldn't stop."
Dax Shepard
In 2012, Shepard told Playboy that he struggled with an addiction to drugs and alcohol. He said that from the ages of 18 to 29, he was a "heavy smoker, heavy drinker, drug addict, terrible eater, and philanderer."
"I just loved to get fucked-up — drinking, cocaine, opiates, marijuana, diet pills, pain pills, everything," he told Playboy. "Mostly my love was Jack Daniel's and cocaine."
He said that he'd get sober for some movie roles but then get right back into his drug and alcohol habits.
Shepard's wife Kristen Bell wrote an emotional post on Instagram in September 2018 to celebrate his 14th year of sobriety.
"I know how much you loved using. I know how much it got in your way. And I know, because I saw, how hard you worked to live without it," she wrote. "I will forever be in awe of your dedication, and the level of fierce moral inventory you perform on yourself, like an emotional surgery, every single night...'m so proud that you have never been ashamed of your story, but instead shared it widely, with the hope it might inspire someone else to become the best version of themselves."
In 2020, Shepard revealed on his podcast, "Armchair Expert," that he relapsed after 16 years of sobriety following a motorcycle accident that resulted in him using painkillers. At the time of the episode's release, the actor was seven days sober.
Stephen Moyer
The "True Blood" star stopped drinking and went into rehab after the birth of his first son.
"I got to a point in my life where I was totally out of control," he told The Telegraph in 2017. " I was shocked into doing something about it and fatherhood was definitely a big aspect of that —the catalyst that shook me. And I would never want to go back there."
He added: "People, say, 'When are you going to be able to have a drink again?' And my answer to that is, 'I've already drunk all the drinks that I was supposed to drink in one lifetime.'"
John Mayer
Following Drake's 30th birthday party, Mayer was hungover for six days. It was after that experience that he decided to stop drinking.
"I looked out the window and I went, 'OK, John, what percentage of your potential would you like to have? Because if you say you'd like 60, and you'd like to spend the other 40 having fun, that's fine," he told Complex. "'But what percentage of what is available to you would you like to make happen? There's no wrong answer. What is it?' I went, '100.'"
During a 2022 interview on the podcast "Call Her Daddy," Mayer said that he hasn't really dated since getting sober.
"I don't think I have to, to be quite honest," he said. "I quit drinking like six years ago, so I don't have the liquid courage. I just have dry courage."
Dennis Quaid
Quaid opened up about his cocaine addiction in an interview with The Sunday Times in 2018.
"I liked coke," he said. "I liked it to go out. I missed it for quite a while. I was doing about two grams a day."
He said he was "lucky" to get a sign that led him to rehab.
"I had one of those white-light experiences where I saw myself being dead and losing everything I had worked for my whole life, so I put myself in rehab," he said.
He stopped drinking for 10 years while kicking his drug addiction but later got back into alcohol.
"I started drinking again, because alcohol was never my problem," he said. "I never liked the feeling of being drunk. I would do coke and I would use alcohol to come down."
Charlie Sheen
Sheen has struggled with alcohol and drug addiction for years. He quit doing cocaine and drinking for 11 years, but he told Dr. Oz in 2016 that he relapsed following his HIV diagnosis.
"It was to suffocate the anxiety and what my life was going to become with this condition and getting so numb I didn't think about it," he said. "It was the only tool I had at the time, so I believed that would quell a lot of that angst. A lot of that fear. And it only made it worse."
The actor told Us Weekly in 2019 that his daughter helped him realize he needed to get sober.
"It was a Sunday. My daughter called and said, 'I need to get to this appointment immediately,' and I'd already had a few drinks," he said.
Sheen called a friend to drive because he couldn't.
"On the drive back, I was just like, 'Damn, man, I'm not available. I'm just not responsible, and there's no nobility in that,'" he said. "It was that night, I just sat with all that."
Sheen continued: "If you can't be available for the basic necessity of being there for your children, then something really needs to shift. It was that next day that I said, 'All right. It's time. Let's give this a shot.' And then a month went by, a couple months went by, I'm [like], 'Alright. This feels good. This feels good.'"
The actor also told Jay Leno in 2019 that his sobriety "didn't require anything super dramatic and crazy and front-page news."
Zac Efron
Back in 2013, Efron went to rehab for alcohol addiction.
"I was drinking a lot, way too much," he told The Hollywood Reporter about a year after his stint at rehab. "It's never one specific thing. I mean, you're in your 20s, single, going through life in Hollywood, you know? Everything is thrown at you."
He joined Alcoholics Anonymous and started seeing a therapist to help him on his journey, but added that battling addictions is a "never-ending struggle."
He told Elle in 2016 that getting sober provided him with "structure" in his life.
Jamie Lee Curtis
Curtis has been sober for more than 20 years. In an interview with People magazine in 2018, Curtis revealed that she became addicted to opioids for 10 years following minor plastic surgery in 1989.
"I was ahead of the curve of the opiate epidemic," Curtis told the magazine. "I had a 10-year run, stealing, conniving. No one knew. No one."
Her husband didn't even know until she went to her first recovery meeting in 1999.
"Getting sober remains my single greatest accomplishment," Curtis said. "Bigger than my husband, bigger than both of my children, and bigger than any work, success, failure. Anything."
Josh Brolin
Brolin entered rehab in 2013 and honored his five-year anniversary of being sober with an emotional Instagram post detailing a horrific night he was drunk.
"Drunk: when you think you're having a rip roaring time and the next morning you wake up and your brain has broken into a frenzied beehive, and your body is shattered shards of sharp glass desperately searching for what fits where and your spirit is being eaten by worms with great white bloodied teeth and your heart has shriveled into a black prune churning your intestines to the point where dysentery feels attractive," he wrote.
He continued: "And you can't remember anything you did so you roll out of bed over last night's urine and you dial your best friend's phone number because you recall him lifting you over his head, your whole self, before you hit and broke through the drywall and, you think, a large aquarium and the phone on the other end rings and he picks it up, that clambering for a phone, the clumsiness of a hardline, and you say: 'What did I do last night?!' and he answers, after a great pause: '…Dude…'. #5years."
In 2021, he celebrated his sobriety by posting a photo of his younger self, accompanied by a lengthy caption.
"Sobriety is finally loving without every thought being about how it affects only you," he said in part. "Sobriety is a moment of being able to love and be consumed by the glee it brings someone else. Sobriety is knowing the difference between selfishness and integrity."
In his 2024 memoir "From Under the Truck," Brolin said that he hit rock bottom when he visited his sickly 99-year-old grandmother while intoxicated.
"I knew that was going to be the last time I drank," he wrote.
"I love being sober," Brolin added. "I have more fun. There's nothing that I go through that I am absolutely certain wouldn't be worse if I was drinking."
Rob Delaney
"It's almost two decades," Delaney shared on Instagram in February 2022. "And I'm shocked and overwhelmed and grateful."
"Twenty years ago I was in jail in a wheelchair and now I'm on a couch, with a lovely quilt, and my life is unrecognizable," he said.
"I got a lot of help from a lot of wonderful people," the actor added. "I started doing volunteer work after I'd been sober for a while, and through that I met my wife 18 years ago, and we've had so many children together. And I had the courage to pursue the career that I really wanted to."
Delaney lost his two-year-old son Henry in 2018 and credited his sobriety with helping him experience grief.
"Sobriety allowed me to be a reasonably good dad, husband, and worker through it all," he said on X in 2019, when he celebrated 17 years. "Sobriety allows me to grieve fully, and grief is an expression of love."
John Stamos
The actor spoke about his sobriety while presenting "Full House" costar Jodie Sweetin with the Writers In Treatment's Experience, Strength and Hope Award for her advocacy work for people in recovery.
"It took me a long time, a long time disappointing everyone who cared about me, culminating in a terrible DUI where I could have killed somebody," Stamos said. "I hit rock bottom."
He continued: "Jodie lovingly allowed me to walk my own path and when I finally humbled myself to ask for your help, I realized that the perky little blabbermouth had become the master of wisdom and was right by my side during some of the most difficult days of my life."
Elton John
In a 2019 Instagram post, John wrote that "29 years ago today, I was a broken man. I finally summoned up the courage to say 3 words that would change my life: 'I need help.'"
"Thank you to all the selfless people who have helped me on my journey through sobriety," he said. "I am eternally grateful."
John reflected on his addiction in a 2019 interview with Variety, saying that he "had reached the lowest ebb in my life — the absolute bottom."
"I hated myself so much," he said. "I was consumed with shame. All I wanted to do was get well. I put all of the energy I had left toward my recovery."
Kit Harington
In an interview with GQ Hype, Kit Harington said that pre-sobriety, it was "physically and emotionally impossible for me not to drink again," and he's "lucky" he got clean before parenthood. (Harington shares a son and a daughter with his wife and "Game of Thrones" costar Rose Leslie.)
"The very fact that I can be proud of it is an achievement," he said, explaining that he used to be self-loathing and despise himself. "So the fact that I am proud of getting sober is in and of itself a mark of being an entirely different person."
Harington added that his sobriety has positively affected his work life, too.
"And now, every set I step onto, whatever work I do, I'm proud of, because I know I put everything into it," he said. "Whereas before I had this huge monkey on my back that was just, like, weighing me down. So yeah, the whole nature of being proud of myself is a relatively new prospect for me."
Flavor Flav
On World Mental Health Day in October, Flavor Flav, whose real name is William Jonathan Drayton Jr., shared an Instagram post days ahead of celebrating four years of sobriety.
"My mental health is an important part of my sobriety journey," he said.
The musician said that he speaks to two therapists: a real one and an AI therapist, whom he uses between his hectic schedule and work travels.
In April, Flavor Flav reportedly revealed via his Instagram Story that he "briefly relapsed."
"I say this to admit my mistake and publicly hold myself accountable. I am a human being who makes mistakes and it doesn't make me a bad person. I hope those who are around me support my choice to be sober."
"I went back to Day 1, again, the rapper reportedly added. "Time didn't stop, my journey continues."
Anthony Hopkins
Days before turning 87 in late December, Hopkins shared an encouraging message about his sobriety and the moment he had a wake-up call.
"I was having such fun," Hopkins said in a video shared on Instagram. "But then I realized I was in big, big trouble because I couldn't remember anything and I was driving a car drunk out of my skull."
"Then on that fatal day, I realized I needed help. So I got it," he added. "I phoned up a group of people like me — alcoholic. And that was it. Sober. I've had more fun these 49 years than ever."
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