Cara Delevingne says being sober helped her cope with $7M LA house fire: ‘I would still be reeling’
Cara Delevingne is thankful she was sober after her $7 million mansion burned down in March.
“It sucks but everyone was safe and, like anything, if I’d not been sober I would still be reeling over that,” the 31-year-old actress told the Times in an interview published Sunday.
“It would still affect me really deeply,” she added.
Delevingne’s Los Angeles home caught fire on March 15.
She was in London for her stage role as Sally Bowles in “Cabaret” the night of the blaze.
Her cats were inside the house, but they were rescued by firefighters. One person was reportedly injured in the incident.
Delevingne had stopped drinking and doing drugs after a rehab stint before the fire.
“Of course it affected me, it’s super sad,” she said about the loss. “It never won’t be. But I don’t use it as a tool to keep myself sad.”
Delevingne added: “I used to think drugs and alcohol helped me cope . . . but they didn’t, they kept me sad and super depressed. I feel like I’ve got my power back and I’m not being controlled by other things.”
According to TMZ, a call came in at 3:52 a.m. on March 15 reporting a fire at Delevingne’s massive property that she bought in 2019.
A total of 94 firefighters from 13 engine companies showed up to battle the blaze. It took the firefighters over two hours to put the conflagration out, per TMZ.
Delevingne confirmed on Instagram at the time that both of her cats survived the fire.
“My heart is broken today,” she captioned a photo of her pets. “I cannot believe it. Life can change in a blink of an eye. So cherish what you have.”
She continued: “Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all the firefighters and people that have showed up to help. They are alive!! Thank you to the firefighters.”
Delevingne’s parents, Pandora and Charles, theorized that an electrical issue was to blame.
“I think she’s probably devastated,” Pandora told TMZ of her daughter’s feelings over the incident in March. “She had everything in her home. Her whole life.”
Less than two years before the fire, Delevingne checked herself into rehab for substance abuse issues after photographers snapped her acting erratically in LA in 2022.
She said in her interview with the Times that the paparazzi pictures encouraged her to seek help and get sober.
“Listen, I signed up for this, this is my job, it’s what I do. But without that would I be sober now?” Delevingne said. “I would have never been Sally Bowles in the West End. I’m super proud of that.”
The “Only Murders in the Building” star told Elle UK last year that quitting alcohol made her “stable” and “calmer.”
“It hasn’t [been easy], but there have never been moments when I’m like, ‘This isn’t worth it,’ ” she told the magazine. “It’s been worth every second. I just don’t know what it would take for me to give it up.”
The model continued, “For a long time, I felt like I was hiding a lot from people who looked up to me. I finally feel as though I can be free and myself, fully.”
