5 celebrities who had long rehab stints

Liam Payne struggled throughout his adult years with alcoholism and substance abuse issues, brought on by the intense pressures of fame, and spent almost 100 days in a rehab facility in Louisiana in 2023.

After he had completed the program, the former One Direction star shared a candid social media video with fans detailing his time in the facility.

"I just kind of feel like I've got more of a grip on life and everything that was getting away from me; I just feel like I've got more of a handle on it," he explained.

"I just needed to take a little bit of time out for myself actually, because I kind of became somebody who I didn't really recognise anymore. And I'm sure you guys didn't either. I was in bad shape up until that point, and I was really happy to kind of put a stopper to life and work."

"I didn't have my phone for nearly 100 days," the father of one continued. "I didn't connect with the outside world at all. Upon leaving, the hardest part was turning the phone back on because it was a little bit scary."

He added that he felt "good" after leaving rehab, and reiterated that "the party's over". A year later, Liam tragically passed away on October 16 after falling from the balcony of a Buenos Aires hotel. He had traces of alcohol and substances in his system when he died.

Robert Downey Jr. was a Hollywood darling thanks to his wunderkind talent, but his fame was soon overshadowed by his drug addiction. The star was given his first joint at just six years old, and his addiction to substances only worsened from there.

Robert did several stints in rehab in the '90s and early '00s, lasting anywhere between a few days to six months, and later credited his wife, Susan Downey, with helping him get sober.

"Job one is get out of that cave," he told Vanity Fair of his time in rehab. "A lot of people do get out but don't change. So the thing is to get out and recognise the significance of that aggressive denial of your fate, come through the crucible forged into a stronger metal."

Drew was just 13 when her mother, Jaid, admitted her to a rehab facility to help her sober up and turn her life around. The actress had spent her childhood drinking, taking drugs and partying in nightclubs – a scene which Jaid had introduced her to in the first place.

Drew stayed in the facility for around 18 months, and later shared that while it was traumatic, she was ultimately grateful for the experience. "My mum locked me up in an institution. Boo hoo! But it did give [me] amazing discipline," she told The Guardian.

"It was like serious recruitment training and boot camp, and it was horrible and dark and very long-lived, a year and a half, but I needed it. I needed that whole insane discipline."

Drew added: "My life was not normal. I was not a kid in school with normal circumstances. There was something very abnormal, and I needed some severe shift."

The E.T. star turned her life around and made a major Hollywood comeback thanks to her incredible performance in the 1992 thriller Poison Ivy, before going on to become a rom-com darling, a super-producer, a TV personality and a successful businesswoman.

Demi has always been open about their struggles with substance abuse, their mental health and their eating disorder, and has done several stints in rehab, most notably in 2010 and 2018.

"I had a decision that had to be made when I had gone to treatment for the first time," they said on the Las Culturistas podcast about their first major stint. "I had this very public outburst when I was 18 and which I talk about in some of my documentaries, but God, there's so many."

"That's kind of the catalyst for why I've been open about all of my struggles, is in that moment when I made that decision, it set the tone for the rest of my life…I want to help people, and the best way that I know how is sharing my personal experience with them," they added.

In 2018, Demi spent three months in rehab after a near-fatal overdose left their family terrified. "Everyone was like, 'We are no longer going to leave; we are leaving,'" they shared on The Jonathan Ross Show.

"That was the moment when I thought, 'Okay, I really need to get help and get sober.' This time I knew…I had hit rock bottom, and I just needed to do this for myself."

Demi has been in rehab a total of five times, and explained on a mental health panel in 2024 that while they felt "defeated" each time they returned, they ultimately found the "glimmer of hope" needed to put in the work and recover.

The country music star intended to spend 30 days in rehab at the Betty Ford Centre after his new wife, Nicole Kidman, staged an intervention just months after their 2006 wedding. "There was no big cataclysmic event that happened right before I went in," Keith shared in a video posted to his website in 2007. 

"It was a lot of small things that were happening in my life, a lot of small moments that were starting to accumulate that were telling me very loud and clear that I was a long way from my program of recovery, and they were making my life unmanageable."

Instead of 30 days, Keith went on to spend three months in rehab while he worked on himself. "Learning about abstinence was one thing, but then there was all this other area of my life to start learning about, and so 30 days became 60, and 60 days became 90, and with each week that passed I found myself really learning how to surrender," he said.

The musician added that his wife, family and friends stayed by his side the entire time and never wavered in their support. "I feel so much gratitude, and it feels really good to have gone through it and be where I am right now."