‘I thought I’d end up dead’: Cara Delevingne addresses those airport pictures six months on

Serious speculation broke out across the internet back in September after Cara Delevingne was pictured outside Van Nuys Airport looking less put together than we’ve deemed is acceptable for an A-list star. Transformation glow downs took hold of TikTok. Accusations of drug addiction ran rampant across Twitter. It was problematic.

And, ahead of the Oscars on Sunday, Cara admitted that the photos going viral prompted her to check into rehab.  “All I knew is if I was continuing to go down the road I was, I would either end up dead or, like, doing something really, really stupid,” she told Vogue.

Cara explained that she started drinking and partying as a teenager and struggled with her mental health, partly because of her mum’s heroin addiction. After seeing the pictures of herself at the airport, Cara realised she was in a “bad place” and wanted to get help.

“At that point, there was a lot of people who were very worried, understandably so,” she said. “But I wasn’t really worried, though … but that is the nature of the disease. That is what addiction is.”

“This process obviously has its ups and downs, but I’ve started realizing so much. 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,” she said. “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.”

Since leaving rehab, Cara has been sober for four months and looked unbelievable in her first public appearance at the Oscars on Sunday. She’s even been praised for having one of the best looks of the night in a Ellie Saab thigh split red dress dress. Most of all, though, fans online were pleased to see her looking happy and healthy.

“I’m enjoying (sobriety),” Cara said. “It’s one of my favourite things to, like, go out and dance and have a good time but actually have, like, deep conversations and connections with people.”

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