Kit Harington
That was how hard his fight against addiction and depression was
Kit Harington in Los Angeles.
© Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / ImageCollect
“Game of Thrones” star Kit Harington has waged a “traumatic” battle against alcohol addiction and depression, as he has now revealed.
Kit Harington, 34, had a difficult time before starting a family with his wife, Rose Leslie, 34. After the hit series “Game of Thrones” ended in 2019, he “went through some pretty terrible things”: “Things that have happened to me since the end of thrones and that happened during thrones were quite traumatic in nature and included alcohol” , he explained to the “Sunday Times”.
You come to a point, says the actor, “at which you feel like a bad person, a shameful person”. And one has the feeling that “there is no way out”. Sobering up is “the process of saying, ‘No, I can change,'” said Harington. In the spring of 2019, it was revealed that the actor had gone to an institution to address his issues.
Harington also said in the Sunday Times that he had suicidal thoughts. He went through periods of depression “when I wanted to do all sorts of things,” he said, adding that he hoped that speaking openly about it could “maybe help someone somewhere.”
“I am a lucky man”
The actor has been married to “Game of Thrones” co-star Rose Leslie since 2018: “You can imagine the stress this causes for others,” he said of his illness. He kept his addiction problems secret: “So they were quite a surprise for the people around me. Which is quite often the case, I think.”
After Harington got better, the couple could look forward to offspring. In September, Leslie revealed that she is pregnant, in “Make” magazine she posed with a baby bump. In February, a spokesman for the couple confirmed to People magazine that the two actors had become parents to a young boy and are “very, very happy.” Harington described the first three months as a father as very physically demanding. He takes off his hat to all single parents who master it: “Because it’s more exhausting than anything I’ve done at Thrones.”
But now he’s got the hang of it. Life with his family is “wonderful”: “I have a child and my relationship is brilliant … I am a very, very happy, contented, abstinent man,” he explained.
Help with depression is offered by telephone counseling on the free number: 0800/111 0 111