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There’s no business like showbusiness, right? The gloss, the glamour, the money, the mansions, the jets, the parties…
But there’s another side to it all. Drugs, booze, pressure, scrutiny, insecurity – all this can go hand in hand with fame and send stars who seem to have it all spiralling into self-destruction.
Just take Ben Affleck. Alcoholism threatened to destroy everything he’d built up both professionally and personally and for a while it seemed Hollywood had turned its back on him.
Yet if anyone is proof a comeback is possible, it’s the 50-year-old actor. He’s clean and sober. His latest movie, Air, about the relationship between basketball star Michael Jordan and Nike is getting great reviews. And he’s married to Jennifer Lopez.
READ MORE | Ben Affleck sets the record straight about his booze battle and says ex-wife Jennifer Garner isn't to blame
He’s also taking ownership of some of his mistakes, including comments he made in a 2021 interview where he seemed to blame his ex-wife, Jennifer Garner, for his drinking problem.
Ben said he felt “trapped” towards the end of their 10-year-marriage. He’d “probably still be drinking” if they hadn’t ended their marriage in 2015, he said.
There was a fierce backlash – especially as Jen was nothing but supportive as Ben battled his demons.
Now, in a new interview with the Hollywood Reporter, he says the fault was all his.
“To be clear, my behaviour is my responsibility entirely.” His remarks were taken out of context, he says. “I was trying to say, ‘Hey, look, I was drinking too much, and the less happy you become, whether it’s your job, your marriage – it’s just that as your life becomes more difficult, if you’re doing things to fill a hole that aren’t healthy, you’re going to start doing more of those things.”
Publicly acknowledging his alcoholism has been bittersweet, he adds. “There’s a lot of compassion but there’s still a tremendous stigma, which is quite inhibiting.
“I became – out of no desire of my own – one of the poster boys for actor alcoholism and recovery and the whole thing. And the best part about that is that sometimes people call me up and they’re like, ‘Hey, can you help me out?’ And it makes me feel so good to do that.”
Ben recognises how lucky he is to have had second chances. “I’m well aware that other people don’t even get first chances,” he says.
He isn’t the only star to have turned his life around – showbiz, that magical, treacherous roundabout, is filled with stories of ruin and redemption.
LINDSAY LOHAN (36): From wild child to mom to be
MAKING IT
She was 12 when she starred in Parent Trap and went on to make hits such as Freaky Friday and Mean Girls. She seemed destined for big things – and then it all came crashing down.
BREAKING IT
Lindsay was 24 when she was arrested for the first time for driving under the influence of cocaine. She was nabbed five more times for DUI offences and even had a short spell in jail. Work dried up after her reputation for being unreliable and difficult spread throughout Tinseltown.
READ MORE | How Lindsay Lohan is getting her life back on track
In 2013 Megan Fox, who co-stared with Lindsay in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, compared her Marilyn Monroe. “She was an actress who wasn’t reliable, who almost wasn’t insurable. She had all the potential in the world and it was squandered.”
FIXING IT
In 2014, she quit Hollywood and moved to Dubai where she turned her focus to entrepreneurship. She opened three beach clubs in Greece and starred in the MTV reality series Lindsay Lohan’s Beach Club.
Moving to Dubai gave her a fresh start, she said in a 2018 interview, and helped her shed the party girl label. She slowly started making her return to showbiz in 2019, appearing as a panellist on the Australian version of The Masked Singer and in 2021 Netflix announced she was starring in their movie Falling for Christmas.
LOVING IT
After a string of disastrous relationships – including with Russian business heir Egor Tarabasov with whom she had a brawl on a Greek beach – she’s finally found love.
In July 2022 she announced her engagement to Bader Shamas, a Kuwait-born financier, and the pair are expecting their first child. “We are so blessed and excited,” she says.
ANGELINA JOLIE (47): From bad girl to global do-gooder
MAKING IT
Angie exploded onto the Hollywood scene in Girl, Interrupted and took home an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress too. The world seemed like her oyster – but her dark side threatened to overshadow everything.
BREAKING IT
She was the quintessential bad girl who dabbled in drugs, had a thing about knives, drank blood and self-harmed. Angelina admitted she loved to shock and take risks. “I’d jump out of airplanes or cut myself to find new thrills,” she said.
FIXING IT
Her life changed when she adopted her first child, Maddox, from a Cambodian orphanage in 2002. “I never thought of myself as a mother until I saw him,” she says.
READ MORE | How Angelina Jolie became a supermom and what really went down on that notorious plane trip with Brad
LOVING IT
These days she pours all her restless energy into her brood of six and helping the world’s most vulnerable. She has over 20 years of service with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and uses her voice and her clout to raise awareness.
DREW BARRYMORE (48): From child addict to success story
MAKING IT
She was just seven when she starred in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the global success of the film made her a household name. But fame and her parents’ divorce saw her going down a dangerous path.
BREAKING IT
Drew was nine when her mom, Jaid, started taking her to nightclubs and by age 11 she’d developed a drinking problem. At 12, she was a drug addict and by 13 she’d survived a suicide attempt and been to rehab.
FIXING IT
Things changed when she was emancipated from Jaid and her dad, actor John Barrymore, and declared an adult at 14. “Maybe it was necessary because I came out of there a more respecting person. And my parents didn’t teach me that,” she said.
READ MORE | Drew Barrymore opens up about how free she feels since she quit booze
She worked in restaurants cleaning toilets until she returned to acting at 17 in the film Poison Ivy. Three years later she started her own production company, Flower Films, and went on to write a memoir, direct films and start a skincare company, Flower Beauty.
LOVING IT
Today, she’s a happy single mom of two young daughters, Olive (10) and Frankie (8), and has her own talk show, The Drew Barrymore Show, which is the fastest-growing show on US daytime TV.
But motherhood is her most important role. “Having grown up in the opposite way, I’m raising my children with all consistency, all protection. This is my chance to get it right.”
CHRISTINA AGUILERA (42): From childhood trauma to pop superstar
MAKING IT
She was nine when she found fame part of the cast of the hit Nickelodeon show The Mickey Mouse Club alongside Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake and became one of the most successful music stars of her generation. But her traumatic past would never leave her alone.
BREAKING IT
Her father, Fausto, was physically abusive towards her mother, Shelly, in front of Christina and it manifested in years of mental health issues. She told Health magazine she “would never want to relive my 20s” after a battle with anxiety and depression that left her struggling to keep her career on track.
READ MORE | Christina Aguilera on Britney rivalry, overcoming childhood trauma and why she’s flourishing at 40
She also had body issues and lost a lot of weight. “It’s tough to look back on now.”
FIXING IT
She’s worked hard on herself, Christina says, and has made peace with the fact you can’t please all the people all the time.
LOVING IT
Every setback has catapulted her forward, she says. “I think that’s my fighting spirit. Living my truth and being honest has always propelled me forward.”
The most important thing in the world is being a good mother her kids, Max (14) and Summer (8) and breaking the cycle of the past.
MATTHEW PERRY (53): From pill popper to sober Friend
MAKING IT
He was one of the stars in one of the world’s best loved sitcoms, making a name as Friends’ wise-cracking Chandler Bing. But behind the scenes things were anything but amusing.
BREAKING IT
Throughout the show’s 10-year run, Matthew was addicted to prescription pills and booze – but fans didn’t realise just how bad things were until he released his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.
READ MORE | My colon burst & my teeth fell out: Matthew Perry tells of his 30-year drug hell
He nearly died in 2018 when his colon burst from opioid overuse and he had to use a colostomy bag for nine months.
FIXING IT
He needed 14 surgeries on his abdomen to fix the damage and his scars are “a lot of reminders to stay sober”. “All I have to do is look down,” he says.
LOVING IT
These days he’s committed to staying clean and getting his career is back on track. And he has the help of his friends from Friends. “Addiction is a hideous disease,” Lisa Kudrow, who played Phoebe, told the New York Times.
“What’s not changing is his will to keep going, keep fighting and keep living.”
ROBERTY DOWNEY JR (57): From drug addict to A-lister
MAKING IT
He’s been acting since the ’80s and has starred in Hollywood blockbusters such as Iron Man and The Avengers – but once upon a time he was a poster boy for wasted talent.
BREAKING IT
For most of the 1990s and 2000s Robert was out of his mind on cocaine and booze. Broke and in and out of prison, he was reduced to earning eight cents an hour scrubbing pizza pans in the kitchen of the LA county jail.
READ MORE | Robert Downey Jr.: I don't remember my 50th
He had a string of arrests for driving under the influence, often with drugs and guns on board. Once he was pulled over, naked and hallucinating, at the wheel of his Porsche.
FIXING IT
His road to redemption began in 2003 when Mel Gibson cast him in the lead role of The Singing Detective. Mel had to personally underwrite Robert’s liability insurance because he was deemed too much of a risk.
LOVING IT
Robert’s real saviour came in the form of producer Susan Levin, who he met in 2003. They wed in 2005 and she made him promise to finish with drugs for good.
He started the 12-step programme, took up meditation and described kicking his addictions as like “coming out of a 20-year coma”. “Now the strongest thing I consume is espresso,” he says.
Sources: hollywoodreporter.com, variety.com, foxnews.com, dailymail.co.uk, mirror.co.uk, today.com, people.com, washingtonpost.com, hellomagazine.com
