While we know that there is a good portion of the world that doesn’t drink alcohol, it’s always surprising to learn about the celebrities who don’t drink. Maybe it’s because of the partying lifestyle and fame seem to go hand-in-hand.
But whether they are sober after struggling with addiction or simply don’t like the stuff, there are teetotalers in Hollywood, to be sure.
Keep reading to find out which stars don’t drink.
Jennifer Hudson
When Jennifer Hudson was on “Chelsea Lately” a few years ago to promote a movie, she revealed that she doesn’t drink—and never has.
“I’ve never had a drink in my life. I’m sober,” Hudson, who played a heroin addict in the movie she was promoting, said. “Normally as an actor, you have things to pull from. I was like, ‘I don’t know what it’s like to feel any of that.”
When Handler asked Hudson what she’s waiting for, Hudson said, “I don’t know. I’ve never been interested. Nobody ever believes it…”
“The reason I can’t have drugs or drink today is because I know that I can’t manage it,” Russell Brand told Oprah in an interview. “As a drug addict, you have to accept that you can never have drink or drugs again.”
Brand says addiction is an illness, and he has spoken out against drug laws that he feels miss this mark around the world.
“There’s literally no reason to proceed with this experiment of prohibition which has lasted for a century, that has done nothing but bring death, suffering, crime, created a negative economy, and deaths all over Mexico, deaths all over Malaysia, unnecessary death penalties,” he said during an U.N. hearing on the subject in 2014.
“I don’t think it’s a secret that I’ve been sober since I was 19,” he told People.
Maguire, who grew up in poverty and was motivated to get out, told The Guardian he “stopped consuming any mind-altering substances when I was 19 years old.” He’s also a vegan, and said while he eats more wheat and sugar than he’d like, he’s “always trying to refine.”
“I found myself drinking two bottles of wine on the couch and I said, ‘Jada, I think we’ve got a problem here,'” she told Contact Music in 2014. “I had problems with alcohol and I really had to get in contact with the pain, whatever that is, and then I had to get some other tools in how to deal with the pain. From that day on I went cold turkey.”
Radcliffe has been sober since 2013 when he sought treatment for alcoholism.
“The drinking was unhealthy and damaging to my body and my social life,” Daniel Radcliffe told ShortList magazine. “That’s beyond question. I was living in constant fear of who I’d meet, what I might have said to them, what I might have done with them, so I’d stay in my apartment for days and drink alone… For a long time people were saying to me, ‘We think you have a problem,’ but in the end I had to come to the realization myself.”
In March 2018, Lovato celebrated six years sober. However, things turned darker later in the year as she admitted to breaking sobriety in a new song in June and was hospitalized for an overdose in July. The star went into rehab and has recently completed 60 days in her program.
“I have always been transparent about my journey with addiction,” she wrote on Instagram after her hospital stay. “What I’ve learned is that this illness is not something that disappears or fades with time. It is something I must continue to overcome and have not done yet… I will keep fighting.”
“I’m not a big drinker and when I did [drink], I’d get a headache. I don’t drink or take drugs so clothes are my only mood enhancer,” she’s said. Guess all those Sex and the City martinis were fake?!
Back in 2015, Matthew Perry received an award from Phoenix House, a nonprofit drug and alcohol rehabilitation organization.
“I’m an award-winning alcoholic, I guess,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I shouldn’t be getting an award; Phoenix House should be getting an award.”
In 2013, People did a story on Perry’s alcohol and pill addiction. “I had a big problem with alcohol and pills and I couldn’t stop,” he told People. “Eventually things got so bad that I couldn’t hide it, and then everybody knew.” Later, he said, “Something clicked. You have to want the help.”
Although she played a drug addict on “Nurse Jackie,” Falco has actually been sober for decades.
“It’s like learning to ride a bike, you know? You have to get your bearings and you have to stay stable. And balanced,” Falco said about her recovery to The New York Post in 2013.
Eminem has battled an addiction to drugs and alcohol for the majority of his adult life, but he finally got clean after almost dying from a drug overdose.
“You gotta remember I hadn’t recorded a song sober in seven years. So it took me awhile to even feel like I could record a song sober … I don’t know the last time I shot a video sober, without drinking or taking anything. It’s been years,” he told Vibe about the sobering experience in 2009.
Jenny from the Block credits her ageless skin to the fact that she doesn’t drink.
“I think that ruins your skin. Of course, during celebratory toasts, everybody’s like, ‘You can’t toast with water!’ So I’ll toast with alcohol and just take a sip,” she told InStyle in 2015.
The country singer was in a really dark place before getting sober in 2006.
“The truth is that I wasn’t even aware of where it was at in my life and how it was just going to come down and take me down like it did,” he told Ellen DeGeneres in 2010. “I was probably in such a state of denial that I consciously wasn’t aware of it.”
After struggling with drug addiction for most of her youth, Osbourne was sober for years before experiencing a relapse in 2017. Now, a year later, she is happily sober once more.
“To cut a long story short, things got really dark. I gave up on everything in my life but most of all I gave up on myself. Life on life’s terms became too much for me to handle. The only way I knew how to function was to self medicate and go from project to project so I never had to focus on what was really going on with me. Something had to give… and it did,” she wrote in an Instagram post in August 2018. “I have spent the past year truly working on my mind, body, and soul! I had to take a step out of the public eye away from work and give myself a chance to heal and figure out who the f*** I really am without a camera in my face.”
When Kelly Osbourne credited brother Jack with “pick[ing] me up from where I had fallen yet again without judgment.” she wasn’t kidding. The star has been sober himself since 2003.
“Well I never thought this was gonna happen 10 years ago,” he wrote in a Twitter post in 2013 celebrating his time in recovery.
For some celebs, like Ricci, the decision to abstain from alcohol became a choice.
“You know, I went through a normal kind of late teens, early 20s drinking, but it was a choice I made, because I didn’t think it was very good for my life,” she told BlackBook in 2008.
Once known as Hollywood’s biggest party boy, Robert Downer, Jr., is no longer about that life.
“I think of myself as someone who has no desire, use for or conscious memory of that life,” he told Playboy in 2010. “And yet I don’t shut the door on it, and I don’t pretend it didn’t happen.”
Banks says she’s stayed away from drugs and alcohol her entire life, which must be part of the reason her skin looks so great.
“I feel like I’ve been very lucky because I don’t really have an addictive personality. I’ve never had any drugs, and I had a little taste of alcohol when I was 12 years old, but that’s about it,” she wrote in an email to fans.
Manganiello quit drinking alcohol after it became a problem in his 20s.
“There was a period of about four years where I needed to quit drinking. And the drinking got in the way [of my career],” he told HuffPost in 2011. “It was one of those obstacles that I had to get over and once again I needed to clear the road in order for these things to happen, so it really is an inside job. I had to clean up my act and figure that whole situation out.”
The “Sex and the City” actress says she’s a “recovering alcoholic” and hasn’t had a drink since she was 22 years old.
“Sure, sometimes I miss it,” she told The Week in 2008. “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.”
Like Lovato, Affleck relapsed earlier this year — exemplifying that the road to recovery can be rocky at times. However, the star is continuing to battle his addiction.
“Battling any addiction is a lifelong and difficult struggle,” he wrote. “Because of that, one is never really in or out of treatment. It is full-time commitment.”
Mendes is sober after attending rehab in 2008 and is proud of her experience.
“I’m proud of people who have the determination and the fearlessness to actually go and face their demons and get better. This is a life or death situation,” she told Interview magazine in 2008.
In 2013, McGraw opened up about how he gave up drinking for his daughters.
“I think it’s a personal choice — when it gets to the point where you think it’s affecting you adversely and it’s affecting your relationships,” he told Ellen DeGeneres at the time. “It’s time to make a change, and I thought it was.”
The famed tattoo artist and makeup entrepreneur has been sober for 11 years. In her sobriety, she has found a better, more conscious, way to live.
“A lot of musicians and writers and poets from back in the day until now have used dysfunction as a muse. I don’t want to be that person anymore,” she told The Fix in 2016.
After a long struggle with drugs, alcohol and an eating disorder, the music legend got sober in 1990 after meeting those struggling with AIDS and becoming inspired to start the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
“Today, my mission to help other people embrace their own humanity and that of others is the most powerful and positive force in the whole wide world. Through my career and humanitarian work, I’ve seen how people can be pulled together,” he told The Fix in 2017. “The human spirit is the most powerful thing in the world, and when it embraces kindness and does good things, wonderful things happen.”
In July 2017, Willis announced her sobriety to the world.
“My decision to become sober wasn’t out of a need necessarily, it was more just that I did ‘sober January’ and I just decided to keep going,” Willis told People at the time.
Farrell got sober in 2005 after many years of being known for his party ways.
“I’m really grateful. It’s really lovely to be present in my life,” he told Ellen DeGeneres in 2012. “I was terrified [of being sober] because, I’m not saying I was a great actor before or a great actor since, but I was terrified that whatever my capacity was as an actor beforehand, however little or large — it would completely disappear.”
The singer got sober just before she turned 20 years old after she moved to New York City in order to pursue her music. Previously, she had struggled with alcohol addiction in her early teenage years.
“My parents were worried, I was worried. I knew it was a problem when I liked it more than I liked doing anything else,” Del Rey told British GQ in 2012. “I was like, I’m f***ed. I am totally f***ed. Like, 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. It’s also a completely different way of living when you know that, it’s like being a different species of person. It was horrific. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me. It was everything in the end.”
Sheppard recently celebrated 14 years of sobriety and largely credits Alcoholics Anonymous for helping him get through it.
“[14] years ago today I came out of my last toxic, life-threatening stupor. I now have a wife & babies & some self-esteem,” he wrote in a celebratory tweet in 2016.
Inspired? We definitely are. Again, we think the above just proves that you can have a productive, enriching and fun life without alcohol. Virgin daiquiri, anyone?
