Cara Delevingne Recalls Getting Drunk at 8 Years Old as She Details Empowering Sobriety Journey

The model has just launched an alcohol-free Prosecco.

Cara Delevingne attends the 29th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at Fairmont Century Plaza on February 26, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Cara Delevingne has opened up about getting sober in a candid new interview with the Sunday Times.

Reporter Vassi Chamberlain started the profile by recalling meeting a young Delevingne at the latter's aunt's wedding in 2001, and when she told the model this, she answered, "You know I got drunk that day. I was eight, what a crazy age to get drunk."

short hair - Cara delevignge

Cara Delevingne opened up about her sobriety journey in a new interview with the Sunday Times.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Throughout the interview, Delevingne went on to detail her journey to sobriety, explaining that the catalyst for her recovery was the photos of her that circulated online in 2022, showing her outside the Van Nuys airport in Los Angeles having gotten there straight from Burning Man, on her way to work in London.

"It was a stupid decision to go straight from a festival to work. I should have waited a day," the model told the Times. "But it was going to happen to me anyway, there were plenty of photos out there of me looking wasted."

Delevingne signed up for rehab soon after that incident, she said.

In the interview, she also explained that substances were one way she tried to deal with being famous. "I used to think drugs and alcohol helped me cope … but they didn’t, they kept me sad and super depressed," she said. "I feel like I’ve got my power back and I’m not being controlled by other things."

The supermodel hasn't stopped going out because she no longer drinks; it's just changed how she shows up to events. "I love being around people who are drinking, it doesn’t mess me up," she said. "I’ve done more in the past two years than I ever have: Glastonbury, Burning Man and Coachella."

It's not the first time Delevingne has addressed her sobriety in an interview: Last July, she opened up about it to Elle U.K. "It hasn’t [been easy]," she told the magazine at the time. "But there have never been moments when I’m like, 'This isn’t worth it.' It’s been worth every second. I just don’t know what it would take for me to give it up. I am stable. I’m calmer."

The Paper Towns actress spoke to the Times as she releases her new alcohol-free Prosecco as part of the brand she shares with her sisters Chloe and Poppy Delevingne, Della Vite.

She's also busy playing Sally Bowles in a West End adaptation of Cabaret right now—with her longtime pal Taylor Swift having recently popped over to London to support her. All wonderful things!

Cara Delevingne and Taylor Swift hug backstage at a London performance of Cabaret

Taylor Swift supports Cara Delevingne at Cabaret in London.

(Image credit: @caradelevingne)
Iris Goldsztajn
Morning Editor

Iris Goldsztajn is a London-based journalist, editor and author. She is the morning editor at Marie Claire, and her work has appeared in the likes of British Vogue, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29 and SELF. Iris writes about everything from celebrity news and relationship advice to the pitfalls of diet culture and the joys of exercise. She has many opinions on Harry Styles, and can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.