IT is almost two years since Cara Delevingne was seen stumbling around an LA airport in dirty socks.
She was on her way back to London from Nevada’s Burning Man festival when she was spotted shoeless, jittery and repeatedly dropping her mobile phone.
It was the latest in a long line of shocking incidents, from fumbling with a suspicious package outside her front door to numerous boozy exploits at home and abroad.
But it was those images of a lost young woman deep in the grips of addiction at the airport that caused the feisty supermodel to finally accept she needed help.
And she has been sober pretty much ever since.
This weekend Cara revealed the full extent of her former wild ways — which started when she was just EIGHT and got sozzled at her aunt’s 2001 wedding.
“You know I got drunk that day,” she said in an interview with the Sunday Times Style magazine.
“I was eight — what a crazy age to get drunk. I woke up in my granny’s house in my bedroom with a hangover, in a bridesmaid’s dress.
“I’d gone around nailing glasses of champagne.”
But Cara, 31, claims she’s “got her power back” after the disturbing airport images of her looking dishevelled went viral.
“It’s heartbreaking, because I thought I was having fun,” she says.
“But at some point it was like, ‘Okay, I don’t look well’.
“Sometimes you do need a reality check, so in a way those pictures were something to be grateful for. I was not okay . . . if I was continuing to go down the road I was, I would either end up dead or, like, doing something really, really stupid.”
And Cara has certainly turned her life around.
Determined to quit boozing, she has been to rehab and just this month she looked happy and healthy as she kissed her musician girlfriend Leah Mason, aka Minke, 32, at the Glastonbury festival.
But admitting it’s been a tough journey to sobriety, she adds: “This process obviously has its ups and downs, but I’ve started releasing so much.
“People want my story to be this after-school special where I just say, ‘Oh look, I was an addict, and now I’m sober and that’s it’.
“It’s not as simple as that. It doesn’t happen overnight . . . I’ve had to dig deeper.”
Now that her nights out do not focus on booze, Cara has launched Della Vite Zero, an alcohol-free sparkling rosé.
She founded the high-end prosecco brand with older sisters Chloe, 40, and Poppy, 38, in 2018.
To the outside world, Cara has it all — a hugely successful modelling career, top movie roles and a glittering “girl squad” including Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez and Margot Robbie.
But despite an incredibly privileged upbringing, her mother Pandora struggled with heroin addiction and Cara has had to weather bouts of depression throughout her life.
She started modelling aged ten but shot to fame in 2011 as the 18-year-old face of Burberry.
Sometimes you do need a reality check, so in a way those pictures were something to be grateful for.
Her striking looks, thick eyebrows and cheeky personality have cemented her as a household name — and she has racked up more than 40million Instagram followers.
To date, she has modelled for Saint Laurent, Dior, Calvin Klein and Chanel.
The late Karl Lagerfeld admired her, frequently closing shows with her by his side, and she regularly attends New York’s Met Gala. In 2020, Cara opened up about her sexuality, revealing she identifies as pansexual — a term which means you are attracted to some people regardless of their sex or gender.
She says: “A lot of the friends I have who are straight have such an old way of thinking.
“It’s, ‘So you’re just gay, right?’
“[They] don’t understand it. If I’m like, ‘Oh, I really like this guy’, they’re like, ‘But you’re gay’. I’m like, ‘No, you’re so annoying!’ ”
Cara — who has been romantically linked to Miley Cyrus, Harry Styles, Halsey, St Vincent, Jack O’Connell and Michelle Rodriguez — added:
“I’m better when I’m in love.
“That doesn’t have to mean with someone. It can also mean with myself.
“It feels incredible when you’re not alone, when you’re facing the world with someone else.” Right now, Cara is dating Minke and seems to be loving life.
The couple were first spotted sharing a deeply passionate kiss while vacationing in Portofino, Italy, and are always gushing about one another on social media.
And the star recently opened up about how supportive Minke has been in her recovery.
The pair celebrated their two-year anniversary with a series of glowing Instagram posts.
Cara wrote: “Two magical years with you and so many pictures of us kissing in front of things.
“These past two years have been A LOT of life. I cannot imagine living life without you.
“I spent so long looking for my partner in crime. Little did I know that it would be someone I went to school with (and had a baby gay crush on).”
In 2019, Cara was pictured with her ex-girlfriend Ashley Benson, 34, carrying a £350 Master Series faux leather sex bench with adjustable restraints into her home.
She recently reflected on the naughty photos, admitting the bench “was heavy” and adding that she finds the shots “hysterical”.
Being so open about sex, she was perfect to host the provocative six-part BBC Three series Planet Sex in 2022, which explored topics such as sexuality, gender fluidity and pornography.
And she shared her personal sex stories throughout. The X-rated series features her participating in a masturbation class, having an orgasm in a lab “for science” and kissing other women at a female-only sex club.
“I had to strip back everything I’ve learned and just be myself, which is very energetic, inquisitive, curious and vulnerable,” she said.
“I felt like I knew so much about what was happening, what the stats were or what the general consensus was of people around the world, but I realised I knew way less than I thought about everyone else and also way less about myself.”
Despite starting to drink at a young age, Cara revealed she did not lose her virginity until she was 18 and kept her bisexuality suppressed.
She said. “That was part of the thing where I never really wanted to accept my sexuality, because I was like, ‘Disney princesses all love men’.
“That’s the way it is. And I’m not gonna be a princess if I don’t.” And she previously divulged she once had sex in a lift with a stranger. “I’ve had one one-night stand when I was a lot younger, but I remember the spontaneity of it,” she says. “It was so sexy. It’s not that I didn’t like him. I had met him that day or whatever and I was like, ‘This is crazy’.”
In Planet Sex, Cara admits she watched porn from a young age and could not climax without it.
But she adds: “I never watched porn with my partners.
“Porn was my sex secret and, in a way, it made me have a lot less respect and a way worse sexual relationship with myself.
“Was I addicted to porn? I didn’t watch it every day, but I didn’t need to have an orgasm every day.
“But I needed to watch it to have one, so I think that in its own way it is an addiction.” She also tells how she used to party to escape the pressures of fame.
“I used to think drugs and alcohol helped me cope, but they didn’t. They kept me sad and super-depressed,” she said.
“Now I feel like I’ve got my power back and I’m not being controlled by other things.
“I like AA meetings, I go to them when I can. Some people would say I don’t go to them enough!
“But I’m doing it my way and it’s working for me. Everyone’s different. You can go in a million times and it doesn’t work. Some people go in once and walk out. Some do it who don’t need it.”
On her refreshing new outlook, Cara added: “I felt like I was hiding a lot from people who looked up to me. I finally feel as though I can be free.”
