Cara: The pictures of despair that were a wake-up call for me
A SHOCKING video showed her stumbling around erratically, dishevelled and shoeless, at an airport in Los Angeles.
Cara Delevingne now credits the paparazzi footage last year as a wake-up call that might have saved her life.
For soon after it emerged, the model and actress, 30, went into rehab to tackle drug and alcohol addiction.
She is now sober and ‘grateful’ for the changes inspired by the video and associated photos.
They emerged in September when she was seen arriving at Van Nuys Airport on the back seat of a black SUV with her feet dangling out of the window.
She left the vehicle and was seen walking around in her socks, smoking and playing with a dog. She later disembarked from a flight before take-off.
Weeks before, in August, she had been pictured covered in bruises celebrating her 30th birthday in Ibiza. Now she has told Vogue she spent weeks partying ‘as hard as I could’ for her birthday.
She said she found the images of herself at the airport ‘heartbreaking because… I don’t look well’.
But she added ‘sometimes you need a reality check so in a way those pictures were something to be grateful for’. She said she knew if she continued as she was she might ‘end up dead’.
Soon afterwards she spoke to friends and checked into rehab, committing to a programme of sobriety. Vogue’s April 2023 issue is available on March 21.