Spiderman star Tom Holland announced this week that he’s launching his own non-alcoholic beer line as part of his ongoing sobriety journey.
Holland has spoken openly about his relationship with alcohol, which he started to question after a “very, very boozy” Christmas period in 2021.
“All I could think about was having a drink [...] It really scared me,” he told the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast in 2023. “I just was like, ‘Wow, maybe I have a little bit of an alcohol thing.’”
Holland has since referenced his relationship with alcohol as an addiction, but his overall tone around sobriety is different to the typical celebrity-addiction-discourse we’ve all become so familiar with over the years.
According to interviews in which he discusses drinking, Holland appeared to quit drinking before it became an overwhelming problem. This ‘mindful’ side of sobriety is a technique beloved by health conscious Hollywood stars, as well as Gen Zs, who are increasingly “sober curious”.
But who else is “mindfully sober”, à la Tom Holland? Here, we list some of the celebrities who have either stopped drinking, taken prolonged breaks or managed their intake, for the sake of their health and happiness.
Anne Hathaway
The Devil Wears Prada star revealed in a March 2024 interview with Vanity Fair that indulging in alcohol never sat right with her, more as a preference than a problem. “I knew deep down it wasn't for me,” she said. “And it just felt so extreme to have to say, 'But none?' But none.”
Speaking about going sober in social situations, she said: “The thing that I have faith in is that everybody else is going to have one or two drinks, and by the time everybody gets to two drinks, you’ll feel like you’ve had two drinks — but without the hangover.”
Adele
It might surprise you to hear that the ‘I Drink Wine’ singer has gone through extended periods of sobriety, but that’s what she disclosed to the crowd of her Vegas residency late last year. “I stopped drinking quite a long time ago," the 35-year old singer said. "It feels like forever. Maybe like three and a half months ago?”
Before that, she went through another period of sobriety around the period of her divorce, something she admitted to in an interview with Oprah in 2021. “I stopped drinking. That’s one great way of getting to know yourself, is just drinking water and being sober as anything," she said.
Blake Lively
Another alcohol non-enjoyer is Blake Lively, who simply doesn’t like being drunk. 'I don't drink, because I don't like the effects of alcohol, but I like being a part of it — I like being social, and I like people coming together,” she told BAZAAR in 2021.
And while the Gossip Girl days may have a real heady debauchery about them, Lively’s dislike of alcohol is a longstanding one. “I don't drink. I've never tried a drug. It's just something that I genuinely don't have a desire for,” she told Allure way back in 2012.
Kendrick Lamar
Compton-born rapper Kendrick Lamar has been open about his relatively straight edge lifestyle, a result of his upbringing in a family who liked to indulge. “I think that come from just being around it so much as a kid,” he told The Arsenio Hall Show in 2013, “I had my share of experiences just watching and being in the midst of the party, y’know.
“This is who I am, you know and I’m not afraid to put it out there, not afraid to look in the mirror and I’m not following any trends, this is who I am,” he said.
Lamar’s sobriety is seen as a rarity in the rap world, though he is kept in good company by fellow Compton rapper Vince Staples, who is also sober.
Calvin Harris
Speaking to the BBC in 2009, Harris shared that he had cut back on alcohol after indulging too much as a young DJ, though he makes it clear he was never an alcoholic. “'I stopped drinking because it actually was making me ill,” he said. 'It was affecting my brain in the worst way. '
“My live shows are a million times better now,” he added. “If you drink, you can't even remember if it's a good show or not — and that's probably for the best, because it would have been rubbish because I'd have been drunk and not making any sense. The fact that people would pay to see a show and I'd not be on form — it wasn't fair. It's not fair on anyone.”
Kim Kardashian
Sometimes booze just isn’t for everyone, and Kim Kardashian was very much one of those people until later in life. In a 2016 interview with her sister, Khloe Kardashian, Khloe declared: “Kimberly does not drink alcohol whatsoever. Pregnant or not, she's just never been into it.”
However, people’s relationships to alcohol can change as they age, and Kim has admitted to enjoying a little more alcohol later in life – at times. “I started to drink a little bit at the age of 42. Coffee and alcohol,” she said on Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop podcast. “I feel like I just gotta let loose a little bit.”
Gillian Jacobs
Community and The Bear actress Gillian Jacobs made the decision to stay away from alcohol at a young age after she watched a family member struggle with addiction.
“As a kid, I made the decision to never drink,” she told The Guardian in 2020. “Then, because I’m stubborn, as I got through high school and college, the more people tried to get me to drink, the more firm I became in my resolution.”
This has made for funny moments in Jacobs’s career, such as when she has to play a character who is drunk or hungover. “I’ve never had alcohol, so I have to ask my cast mates, ‘Is this what being drunk is like?’” she said in 2017. “I had an episode in Community where I was supposed to be hungover, so I kept grilling everybody about what it was like and they told me lights are really painful and you hate loud noises, so I was like, ‘OK, got it!’”
