The choice to stop drinking can be a difficult one, but for many people, it's the right one to make. While some are able to cut themselves off once they've reached their personal alcohol limit, others struggle with addiction, and some of those people happen to be famous. There aren't many totally sober celebrities out there, but they do exist — and most of them are happy to be part of that club.
A number of stars have been open about their decision to stop drinking, a step they've made for so many different reasons. While certain celebs, including Keith Urban, have been to rehab and realized they needed to change their ways, others like Kelly Ripa decided to cut alcohol out of their lives because they simply feel better without it.
Here are celebrities who have made the choice to be sober, and who claim they are living a better life for doing it.
Chrissy Teigen
In December 2020 — months after suffering a devastating pregnancy loss — Chrissy Teigen took to Instagram to share that she had been sober for four weeks because of it.
"It was a really transformative thing for me, and in a way it really saved me because I don't think that I would've discovered therapy and then sobriety, and this path of feeling good about myself and feeling like a new person," she later shared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
In July 2022, she hit the big milestone of one year sober.
Anne Hathaway
Anne Hathaway told Boston Common Magazine that she'd stopped drinking when she realized that her hangovers were preventing her from being a present mom to sons Jonathan and Jack.
"I didn't put [a drink] down because my drinking was a problem; I put it down because the way I drink leads me to have hangovers, and those were the problem," Anne said. "My last hangover lasted for five days. When I'm at a stage in my life where there is enough space for me to have a hangover, I'll start drinking again, but that won't be until my kid is out of the house."
Bella Hadid
Model Bella Hadid realized that drinking to handle her anxiety had gotten out of hand, so she's started using alcohol-free ways to manage those feelings instead.
"My social anxiety was something that slowly crept up on me as I grew into my twenties," she explained in an Instagram post in September 2021. "It got harder for me to go out without having one drink to calm my nerves, which made me not want to go out at all so I was just hibernating between jobs."
Jessica Simpson
In an Instagram post that she shared in November 2021, Jessica Simpson wrote that she woke up one day in 2017 and realized that she was "unrecognizable" to herself, so something had to change.
"Personally, to do this I needed to stop drinking alcohol because it kept my mind and heart circling in the same direction and quite honestly I was exhausted," she wrote. "I wanted to feel the pain so I could carry it like a badge of honor. I wanted to live as a leader does and break cycles to advance forward — never looking back with regret and remorse over any choice I have made and would make for the rest of my time here within this beautiful world."
Jada Pinkett Smith
Jada Pinkett Smith decided that sober was the way to be when she passed out on the set of The Nutty Professor after a night of drinking and using drugs.
"I went to work high, and it was a bad batch of ecstasy," she said on an episode of Red Table Talk. "And I passed out and I told everybody that I must have had old medication in a vitamin bottle. But I'll tell you what I did, though. I got my ass together and got on that set. That was the last time."
Kristin Davis
And Just Like That star Kristin Davis has been sober for more than 20 years after a stint in rehab scared her straight, but she did admit in an interview with British Marie Claire (via The Week) that she misses drinking every so often.
She said: "Every once in a while, I'll be with friends and they'll be drinking red wine and I'll think, in a really innocent way, 'Oh wow, that's such a wonderful glass of red wine. Wouldn't it be fun to drink it?' Maybe it would be fine, but it's really not worth the risk."
Bradley Cooper
Bradley Cooper gave up drinking when he was 29 years old and now, at 48, nothing has changed since.
"I was so concerned what you thought of me, how I was coming across, how I would survive the day," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "I always felt like an outsider. I just lived in my head. I realized I wasn't going to live up to my potential, and that scared the hell out of me. I thought, 'Wow, I'm actually gonna ruin my life; I'm really gonna ruin it.'"
Drew Barrymore
During an appearance on CBS This Morning in December 2021, Drew Barrymore revealed that she has been sober for more than two years, though she didn't go into detail about giving up drinking. "It was something I realized just did not serve me and my life," she said.
Kelly Ripa
Talking to Parade, Kelly Ripa said that she and husband Mark Consuelos have both given up alcohol.
"We did both quit drinking almost three years ago," she said. "Not that we were sitting around drinking day and night, but I think that there is something about like clean living — maybe that's what did it. Maybe that's the difference."
Daniel Radcliffe
Daniel Radcliffe has said that the Harry Potter franchise actually led to him becoming an alcoholic, and then he realized he needed to get sober.
"A lot of drinking that happened towards the end of Potter and for a little bit after it finished, it was panic, a little bit not knowing what to do next — not being comfortable enough in who I was to remain sober," he told BBC Radio 4, via Indie Wire.
Eva Mendes
In 2008, Eva Mendes spent time in a rehab facility in Utah, though she did say she doesn't want to go into detail about her sobriety journey while talking to Interview magazine.
"I think now we just know way too much about our celebrities," she said, via HuffPost. "It's not that interesting when you know that much about people. I have no ego about me. It's just better for you not to know because it really does make me a better actor at the end of the day. You're not going into the movie with all these specifics about me."
Demi Lovato
Though initially Demi Lovato proclaimed that she was "California sober," in 2021 she shared that she had decided to give up alcohol, too.
"I no longer support my 'California sober' ways," Demi announced in an Instagram Story, according to The Cut. "Sober sober is the only way to be."
Nicole Richie
After battling substance abuse for years, Nicole Richie gave up drinking after a stay in rehab and an arrest on DUI charges. "I'm happy for the things I have accomplished," she said in an interview on 20/20. ".I'm happy I'm not in that state anymore."
Zac Efron
After going to rehab in 2013, Zac Efron told Elle that he was able to find "structure" in his life when he was sober. "There was a moment when my morning routine was like, get up and Google yourself. But that stopped, dramatically and instantly, probably three years ago," he explained.
"I realized that viewing yourself through other people's pictures is not living your own life. I wasn't really being myself. A lot of my hobbies had gone out the window. I couldn't skateboard or surf for fear of being followed. Crossing the line of fear is what leads to greatness."
Ben Affleck
After Ben Affleck's 2018 divorce from Jennifer Garner, he started getting serious about his sobriety, as he told The New York Times.
"It's not particularly healthy for me to obsess over the failures — the relapses — and beat myself up," he told the outlet. "I have certainly made mistakes. I have certainly done things that I regret. But you've got to pick yourself up, learn from it, learn some more, try to move forward."
John Mayer
John Mayer told Complex that a hangover lasting six days is what finally got him to quit drinking for good.
He said: "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. 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.'"
Lana Del Rey
After drinking as young as 14 years old, Lana Del Rey was sent to boarding school by her parents to sober up.
"At first it's fine and you think you have a dark side — it's exciting — and then you realize the dark side wins every time if you decide to indulge in it," she told GQ. "It's also a completely different way of living when you know that … a different species of person. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me."
Keith Urban
Country music star Keith Urban has been sober for more than 20 years after wife Nicole Kidman staged an intervention for him.
"It took me a long time to get sober," he told Rolling Stone Australia. "Took me a long time to recognize my alcoholism. A long time because I didn't drink like my dad, so I compared everything to him. So it just took a long time for me. But I was able to finally make the right choice in my life, that I wish my dad would have made."
Kit Harington
Former Game of Thrones star Kit Harington told The Sunday Times that things became "traumatic" enough for him that he needed to quit drinking entirely.
"You get to a place where you feel like you are a bad person, you feel like you are a shameful person," he said. "And you feel that there's no way out, that's just who you are. And getting sober is the process of going, 'No, I can change.'"
Lucy Hale
In February 2023, during an episode of the Diary of a CEO podcast, Lucy Hale celebrated one year of sobriety, opening up about how she realized she'd had a problem with alcohol since she was 14 years old.
"I said, 'I deserve more out of this life. I have to try it a different way,'" she explained of the realization that she made when she hit rock bottom.
Shia LaBeouf
After a rather storied history in Hollywood of scandals and misbehavior, including sexual abuse allegations, Shia LaBeouf is now sober. In emails the actor gave to Variety in August 2022, which were written to Olivia Wilde in the middle of the Don't Worry Darling drama that led to his role in the film being recast, he shared that it had been years since he last drank.
He wrote: "I have embarked on a journey that feels redemptive and righteous (dirty word but fitting). I write to you now with 627 days of sobriety and a moral compass that never existed before my great humbling that was the last year and a quarter of my life."
Hayden Panettiere
After revealing her addiction to opioids and alcohol, which she said led to "self-destruction," Hayden Panettiere told People that things were looking up in July 2022.
"This hasn't been easy, and there were a lot of ups and downs," she said at the time. "But I don't regret even the ugliest things that have happened to me. I feel incredibly accomplished. And I feel like I have a second chance."
Dave Coulier
In an Instagram post he shared in March 2022, featuring his face bloodied after he fell going up a stone staircase while inebriated, former Full House star Dave Coulier revealed that he'd given up drinking for good.
"The eight hours of drinking, laughter, and funny stupidity was followed by two days of feeling like a bowl of dog mess," he wrote. "I loved booze, but it didn't love me back. I decided to make a decision for my own well-being, my family, and for those around me who I love so dearly."
