Cara Delevingne Remembers Getting Drunk at Age 8: ‘What a Crazy Age’

Cara Delevingne is opening up about her long journey to sobriety and the startlingly young age at which her alcohol experience began.

The 31-year-old supermodel and actress reflected on her early experiences with alcohol during a recent interview with *The Sunday Times*. Recalling her aunt’s wedding in 2001, Delevingne confessed that she got drunk for the first time at just eight years old.

“I got drunk that day,” Delevingne admitted. “I was eight. What a crazy age to get drunk.”

She described how she woke up the next morning at her grandmother’s house with a hangover, still dressed in a bridesmaid’s gown. “I’d been going around nailing glasses of champagne at the wedding and ended up trashed,” the *Carnival Row* star explained.

Reflecting on her struggles with substance abuse, Delevingne attributed her problems to the pressures of fame and its accompanying anxiety and scrutiny.

“I used to think drugs and alcohol helped me cope,” she shared. “But they didn’t. They kept me sad and super depressed.”

Having achieved sobriety for several years, Delevingne now feels empowered. “I feel like I’ve got my power back and I’m not being controlled by other things…I finally feel as though I can be free,” she stated.

Delevingne emphasized the importance of support groups, revealing that she attends Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings when she can. “I like AA meetings. Some people would say I don’t go to them enough,” she said. “But I’m doing it my way and it’s working for me. Everyone’s different. You can go a million times and it doesn’t work. Some people go once and it clicks. Some do it even though they might not need it.”

Delevingne initially disclosed her battle with addiction in the April 2023 issue of *Vogue*, where she described her path to sobriety following a significant turning point in September 2022.

Public concern for the model surged around that time when she was photographed shoeless at a Los Angeles airport. She had returned from the Burning Man festival and was seen looking disheveled, riding in an SUV with her feet dangling out of the window.

“I hadn’t slept. I was not OK,” she recalled to *Vogue* in 2023. “It’s heartbreaking because I thought I was having fun, but at some point it was like, ‘OK, I don’t look well.’”

Delevingne checked into rehab in September 2022 and committed to a 12-step program that has since helped her maintain her sobriety.

In her recent interview with *The Sunday Times*, Delevingne, currently celebrating her second anniversary with girlfriend Minke, mentioned that she now attends music festivals sober. “It smelt bad, my feet hurt and I didn’t stay up so late, but it was just as much fun,” she said of her experience at the Glastonbury Festival in late June. “I never want my life to change in that way.”

In February 2023, Delevingne spoke to ET about turning 30 and expressed her excitement about this new phase in her life. “After turning 30, there was a lot that clicked. I think my 20s were brilliant, but there were many things I wanted to focus on,” Delevingne shared. “There was a part of me that still felt insecure from my teenage years, always questioning and doubting myself.”

“But it’s true, women being in their prime in their 30s,” she added. “I just don’t care anymore. I’m much kinder to myself and I think something’s changed this year, for sure.”

Delevingne explained that in her 20s, she did a lot for other people’s approval and love. “It doesn’t matter and it’s not going to make you love yourself more. It just doesn’t,” she stated.

Equipped with experience and emotional maturity entering her 30s, Delevingne is now focusing on healing and prioritizing her own desires. “What I really want to do, not for others’ sake but for my own,” she concluded. “It’s just really nice.”

Source: The Sunday Times, Vogue, ET