Colin Farrell used to come to Staniel Cay when I lived there. He was at the bar all the time (like 8 in the morning, all the time – even I was drinking coffee). It was during the filming of Miami Vice and he had a weird hairstyle, but he was still hot. I think he’s been sober for eight years now, and although I kind of like the edgy, Irish, chain smoking, furrowed brow thing he does so well – he is the perfect poster-boy for sobriety.
Robert Downey Jr. had the biggest turn around, but I think he has a live-in sober coach (and a sort of snippy, ultimatum giving wife). He’s been on the wagon for fifteen years…
Tim McGraw also lived on an island near Staniel Cay (I am sensing a recurring theme). I’ve been to his island (very near magician David Copperfield’s island, where he allegedly got cute audience members drunk and kidnapped them). Tim McGraw used to get sober like Barbara Streisand retires from singing, but he’s been off the sauce for a while now. And he got super-buff since he quit drinking, so I’ll forgive the omnipresent, shiny black hat…
Okay, he’s not quite as handsome as the others, but he’s Steven King. And he got hit by a car, and he’s big time sober (he used to drink mouthwash), and his book On Writing is my favorite “How To” manual… He’s been in recovery since the 80’s.
To me, Russell Brand looks like every drunken, cheeky, pub yabo in London, but he’s been sober 12 years. He did that documentary From Addiction to Recovery in 2012, and the scene where he testifies in front of the snooty British Judiciary Committee is a classic. I included it at the bottom of the blog just so you could see the outfit he wore…
That’s it. That’s all I’ve got…
I started this rather out of character undertaking, thinking it would be amazing and fun and there’d be so many really cool celebs I could reference and admire as sober role models – but the same people pop up on every list, and I think it’s great that Keith Urban and Rob Lowe and Joe Walsh are clean and sober – but they just don’t qualify as my favorites. I’m sure they’ll be devastated to hear they didn’t make the grade.
And I promise I tried to come up with a bunch of sober women celebrities, but every time I’d pick a go-to name like Tara Reid (my personal favorite party-girl, train wreck who was sober a few years ago) or Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan, I’d wonder to myself, “Are they are still sober?” and Google was mum about the condition of their conditions… Then there’s the dark haired woman from Sex and the City and Jamie Lee Curtis (yawn) and Nicole Ritchie and Jada Pinkett Smith – in truth I can’t get excited about anything they do. And there’s a bunch of women celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Blake Lively who never drank, and that doesn’t count.
So I’m going with Sheryl Crow because she says she used to get drunk to give herself the “courage to perform,” but she doesn’t drink anymore. And because she is performing at the Facing Addiction rally on the National Mall in Washington D.C. October 4th.
Help me out here – Who am I missing? Who’s your favorite sober celebrity?
Today I’m not drinking because if I run into Colin Farrell again, I don’t want to be drooling into my Chardonnay (like last time)…
How come you’re not drinking?
And here’s Russell Brand talking addiction:
