Hollywood actor Kit Harington recently opened up about his struggles with alcohol, admitting that he contemplated suicide during moments of depression. According to an interview given to the Sunday Times Magazine, the British actor has been sober for two and a half years.
When asked by the publication if he felt suicidal during this time, Harington responded, “I will give you an answer to that question: The answer is yes.” He added, “Yes, of course. I went through periods of real depression where I wanted to do all sorts of things.”
Harington, who welcomed a baby boy this year with his wife and former co-star Rose Leslie, went on to add that he hopes his honesty about his experience can “maybe help someone, somewhere.”
Harington sought treatment after going through “some pretty horrible stuff” around the time Game of Thrones ended. “Things that have happened to me since Thrones ended, and that were happening during Thrones, were pretty traumatic, and they did include alcohol,” confessed the Eternals star. He admitted that he hit rock bottom during that time but has a much more positive mindset since leaving rehab.
“You get to a place where you feel like you are a bad person; you feel like you are a shameful person,” he explained. “And you feel that there’s no way out; that’s just who you are. And getting sober is the process of going, ‘No, I can change.’ One of my favourite things I learnt recently is that the expression ‘a leopard doesn’t change its spots’ is entirely false: it does change its spots. I just think that’s the most beautiful thing. It helped. That was something I kind of clung to; the idea that I could make this huge fundamental change in who I was and how I went about my life.”
Harington also addressed the strain his alcohol abuse put on his relationships, including his marriage to Leslie.
“You can imagine the stresses that it causes to those around you,” he said, adding, “I will say about my addictions that I kept them very, very quiet, and I was incredibly secretive and incredibly locked up with them. So they came as quite a surprise to the people around me. Which is quite often the case, I guess.”
