Addiction is a disease, and it's one that knows no bounds. Race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status — none of that matters to addiction. Everybody and anybody can fall victim to it, including some of our favorite stars. For celebrities, addiction is often an even tougher battle, simply because they have greater access to drugs and alcohol than most people, not only due to their sizable incomes, but their significant influence and power. We can't count how many times we've heard about celebrities checking into rehab.
It's always sad to see a talented celeb succumb to addiction and let it control their lives. Sometimes, they even end up losing once-booming careers. It's absolutely awful to watch their lives crumble, and even worse when we see celebs suffer overdoses or end up in rehab again and again. Others, though, eventually overcome their substance abuse issues and even manage to reignite their careers once they're sober. So sometimes, a happy ending is possible.
The visibility of celebrities makes them important examples. Whether it's a happy story or a tragic one, when we see celebrities who struggle with addiction in the news, it affirms that no matter who you are, or what you do, addiction can have detrimental effects — and it sparks some important conversations. So here, we're sharing a list of celebrities — those still alive today — who have battled addiction.
Jessica Simpson
A couple of years ago, singer and fashion mogul Jessica Simpson opened up about her battle with alcohol addiction in her memoir, Open Book. And in 2021, she shared this raw photo of herself from the days when she was struggling with alcoholism, and she looked utterly unrecognizable. She's been sober for four years.
"There is so much stigma around the word alcoholism or the label of an alcoholic," she wrote on Instagram. "The real work that needed to be done in my life was to actually accept failure, pain, brokenness, and self-sabotage. The drinking wasn't the issue — I was."
Travis Barker
Blink 182 drummer and Kourtney Kardashian's fiancé, Travis Barker, got a rude awakening when he was the only survivor of a horrific plane crash in 2008. He escaped death and let that be his motivation to give up prescription drugs, which he had been addicted to for years. His opioid addiction was so bad that he told Men's Health that he would wake up in the middle of the surgeries he underwent to treat the burns he suffered in the accident.
"People are always like, 'Did you go to rehab?'" he said. "And I [say], 'No, I was in a plane crash.' That was my rehab. Lose three of your friends and almost die? That was my wake-up call. If I wasn't in a crash, I would have probably never quit."
Chrissy Teigen
In the summer of 2021, mom of two Chrissy Teigen admitted that she had been living as a "functioning alcoholic," but that she gave up drinking earlier in the year. She's gone back to drinking at various points in time, but in September, she announced a 50-day sobriety streak on Instagram, saying it's been her longest one yet.
"I still dunno if I'll never drink again, but I do know it no longer serves me in ANY way," she wrote. "I don't get more fun, I don't dance, I don't get relaxed. I get sick, fall asleep, and wake up sick, having missed what was probably a fun night. I had my fun with it and appreciate anyone who can enjoy it responsibly."
Machine Gun Kelly
Musician Machine Gun Kelly told Interview that for a long time he thought drugs were the key to his creativity. "I think I watched myself believe that drugs were how you attained a level, or unlocked something in your brain, and I've seen the pros and cons of it," he explained. "Adderall was a huge thing for me for a long time. And I went from orally taking it to then snorting it, and then it became something where I was scared to ever go into a studio if I didn't have something. I wouldn't even step out unless there was a medicine man who was going to visit me and give me what I needed."
Ye
Kanye admitted to being a functioning alcoholic in a GQ interview in 2020. "I really grabbed the drink to be able to even go to the awards show due to the information that everyone knows now. To say, 'Okay, I can handle this,'" he said, before recounting the moment he knew things had to change.
"One day, I was in my office working, and there was some Grey Goose in the fridge, and I was just going to get a daytime drink. I looked and thought, 'Devil, you're not going to beat me today.' I haven't had a drink since I realized I needed to take it day by day, but I never owned up, or was even told, 'Hey, you're a functioning alcoholic.' People have called me a crazy person, people have called me everything — but not a functioning alcoholic. And I would be drinking orange juice and Grey Goose in the morning."
Demi Lovato
In 2018, singer and actor Demi Lovato almost died of an overdose. They've since spoken publicly and candidly on social media and in various interviews about their ongoing battle with substance abuse, the events that led to the overdose, and the process of recovery. Demi has also chronicled their experiences in the YouTube documentary Dancing With the Devil.
Ben Affleck
As fans, we've seen A-lister Ben Affleck check in and out of rehab. He's a huge talent, but his life has been mired by his alcohol addiction for years. He told The Hollywood Reporter that it was around the year 2016 that he realized he was an alcoholic. "I started drinking too much around the time of Justice League, and it's a hard thing to confront and face and deal with. I've been sober for a while now, and I feel really good — as healthy and good as I've ever felt," he said in early 2021. His career has been on fire ever since.
Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore has spent her entire life in the spotlight, and we all watched her battle addiction when she was really, really young. She was actually checked into rehab when she was just 12 years old, and then at 13, she spent 18 months in treatment at a mental health facility. She got clean all those years ago, and now in her 40s, she's no teetotaler, but she's healthy enough to manage her consumption.
Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis is a tremendously successful actor who started her career when she was quite young, and managed to continue working through a difficult opioid addiction. "I was ahead of the curve of the opiate epidemic," she told People. "I had a 10-year run, stealing, conniving. No one knew — no one," she said.
Robert Downey Jr.
Robert Downey Jr.'s addiction struggles almost cost him his career — and his life. He says that he started doing drugs with his father, who was a filmmaker, when he was just 6 years old. He spent most of the 1990s in and out rehab. By the late '90s, he had overdosed, been sent to a treatment facility, escaped, and got arrested because of it. He was blacklisted by Hollywood for a few years, but he got clean, joined the Avengers franchise, and has gone on to have an amazing career.
Michael J. Fox
A few years ago, actor Michael J. Fox came out and admitted that after he found out about his Parkinson's diagnosis in 1991, he fell into alcoholism. "I was isolating myself from my family," he told People. Then one day he passed out drunk, and his young son found him. His wife made it quite clear that he was going down the wrong path — and that she wasn't having it. So he worked to get sober.
Johnny Depp
Johnny Depp has struggled with both drug and alcohol addiction and once admitted to taking "every drug under the sun." It's landed him in hot water on more than one occasion, but most notably relating to his ongoing legal battle with ex-wife Amber Heard, who has accused him of assault (which he has vehemently denied). He says the worst of it was in the first decade of the 2000s, and although he's been sober in the past, it's unclear where he's at with his sobriety journey currently.
Macaulay Culkin
Actor Macaulay Culkin turned to drugs and alcohol when his time as a child star was up. Back in 2004, he was even arrested for possession of Xanax. After years of being an active drug user, Macaulay is now sober. "I don't touch the things. I do love them. They're like old friends. But sometimes you outgrow your friends," he told Esquire in 2020, the year before he became a dad for the first time.
Zac Efron
Zac Efron had a really rough patch after rocketing to stardom as a teenager. He also did a stint in rehab and famously got into a fight with a homeless man in Los Angeles in the wee hours of the morning — but he was able to get his life and career back on track eventually. "It's never one specific thing," he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014. "I mean, you're in your 20s, single, going through life in Hollywood, you know? Everything is thrown at you. I wouldn't take anything back; I needed to learn everything I did. But it was an interesting journey, to say the least."
Nicole Richie
TV personality and fashion designer Nicole Richie grew up quite privileged and got famous for basically being a party girl. She once said that she turned to drugs out of boredom. "I got so much so fast that nothing really excited me anymore," she said in a 20/20 interview (via People). At different times, she sought treatment for both cocaine and heroin addiction, and eventually managed to get clean.
Fergie
Former Black Eyed Peas frontwoman Fergie admits to being hooked on crystal meth in the early 2000s. Her worst moments came after the girl group she was in at the time was dropped from their label, and she began using every day. "It took a year after getting off that drug for the chemicals in my brain to settle so that I stopped seeing things. I'd just be sitting there, seeing a random bee or bunny," she said in an interview with London's Evening Standard.
Samuel L. Jackson
Samuel L. Jackson is a huge Hollywood star who once said, "I was out of my mind," in reference to his drug and alcohol addiction in the 1980s. He's even admitted that he believes he lost out on acting jobs because of it. And it sounds like it almost cost him his marriage, too.
"I threatened to leave him if he didn't see the rehab through," his wife, LaTonya Richardson, told Vanity Fair. "I knew I couldn't leave this boy I admired so much. But I resented him too. I hated it when he slurred his words. A wife hates to see her husband be weak." Samuel completed rehab, and has had a successful career ever since.
Keith Urban
In 2016, Keith Urban admitted to Rolling Stone that his drinking and drug use got completely out of control. "[Expletive] started to really go awry," he said. "I stepped up my drinking. I started doing more drugs. Yeah, man. The whole backend of the '90s was just awful. I didn't seem able to stop. I'd go to sleep, wake up a couple of hours later, go at it again, drinking to take the edge off. I remember thinking, 'I'm probably not going to make it until tomorrow.' And then I thought, '[Expletive] it. I really don't care. It'll be a relief. I'll take an Ambien and at some point I'll pass."
Dax Shepard
Actor Dax Shepard has been candid about his addiction struggles over the years. "What I would do is I would get sober for movies," he revealed on Blake Griffin's The Pursuit of Healthiness podcast, according to People. "I cared more about movies — it was the only thing I was more addicted to — and so I would get sober for movies, and then in-between movies it was getting more and more dangerous."
Lady Gaga
In the 2010 biography Lady Gaga: Just Dance, Gaga admitted that there was a point when she was addicted to cocaine. "My cocaine soundtrack was always The Cure. I would lock myself in my room and listen to 'Never Enough' on repeat while I did bags and bags of cocaine. It was about being an artist," she says in the book.
"I wasn't a lazy addict. I would make demo tapes and send them around. At the time, I didn't think there was anything wrong with me until my friends said, 'Are you doing this alone?' Um, yes. Me and my mirror."
Alec Baldwin
Actor Alec Baldwin struggled with alcohol addiction in his 20s. His moment of realization came in his car. "I'm driving down the road, I'm having a drink," he recalled of that day in 1983. "It's 4 o'clock, I'm supposed to have a drink. But one day I went, 'I don’t see anybody else in their car with a plastic take-out container filled with ice and wine. They're drinking coffee, they're drinking Diet Coke. They're not drinking wine," he wrote in the book Moments of Clarity, explaining that he then sought treatment. He's been sober ever since — and good thing, because he now has seven kids to keep up with.
Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt's drinking was one of the things that led to his now-bitter divorce from Angelina Jolie. The two had a huge fight about his drinking while flying on a plane in 2016, and it was then that Brad decided to get sober. He turned to Alcoholics Anonymous for help. "I had taken things as far as I could, so I removed my drinking privileges," he told The New York Times, before explaining why AA worked for him. "It was this safe space where there was little judgment, and therefore little judgment of yourself."
*Psst: if you choose to purchase an item from this post, CafeMom.com may receive a small cut. Each item and price is up to date at the time of publication; however, an item may be sold out or the price may be different at a later date.
