SUPERMODEL-turned-actor Cara Delevingne is the toast of the West End after her stage debut went down a storm on Monday.
The catwalk star is playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret, a dream role for a woman who auditioned for and won the coveted part previously played by A-listers including Liza Minnelli and Dame Judi Dench.
But the road to Cara’s standing ovation has been difficult, as she battled to get back on her feet after hitting rock bottom 18 months ago.
After worrying photographs of her emerged in September 2022, her friends told The Sun how her family — her sister is socialite Poppy Delevingne and they are descended from viscounts and baronets — had come close to intervening.
Cara was seen sitting alone in a car in West Hollywood, smoking in the driver’s seat and sucking on what looked like a pipe.
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Days later she was seen wandering around Van Nuys airport in Los Angeles looking dishevelled after spending a few days at the Burning Man Festival in the Nevada desert, where, it was claimed, she had not showered or eaten for days.
Reality check
Her behaviour came just a few weeks after she was seen celebrating her 30th birthday with a series of wild parties in Ibiza with pals including Barbie actress Margot Robbie.
At Van Nuys a video showed her seemingly unable to control her limbs as she bent over, dropped her phone and wandered around while on a call, with a cigarette in her hand.
Cara had been due to fly out of Los Angeles and she was seen boarding Jay Z’s private jet, but then she re-emerged, her bags were removed from the plane and she was driven away from the airport.
At the time her friends told The Sun: “We are all incredibly concern-ed. The situation has been building for a few weeks now and Cara’s family is involved.
“There is talk of staging some kind of intervention and making sure Cara gets the help she may well need.
“She has been burning the candle at both ends of late, and it’s clearly taking its toll.”
The shocking photographs were a wake-up call for Cara, who once admitted she didn’t think she would live to see 30.
She later said of the pictures: “I hadn’t slept. I was not OK.
Sometimes you need a reality check, so in a way those pictures were something to be grateful for
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“It’s heartbreaking because I thought I was having fun, but at some point it was like, ‘OK, I don’t look well’.
“Sometimes you need a reality check, so in a way those pictures were something to be grateful for.” Of the festival, she said: “There is an element of feeling invincible when I’m on drugs.
“I put myself in danger in those moments because I don’t care about my life.”
Cara then checked into rehab and began a 12-step programme to break free of drink and drugs.
She added: “Before, I was always into the quick fix of healing, going to a week-long retreat or to a course for trauma, say, and that helped for a minute, but it didn’t ever really get to the nitty-gritty, the deeper stuff.
“This time I realised that a 12-step treatment was the best thing, and it was about not being ashamed of that.”
In a revealing interview with British Vogue mag, Cara also gave an insight into her earlier years, explaining that when her mother Pandora, 64, was going through heroin addiction it took a devastating toll on her.
She said: “The way that addiction took my mother from me was brutal, and it was brutal for her too.”
The way that addiction took my mother from me was brutal, and it was brutal for her too
Cara Delevingne
Cara started using drugs and drinking in her teens, having first had booze aged just seven.
By the time she was ten — the age when she also got her first major modelling job, for Vogue Italia — Cara was prescribed pills to help her manage insomnia.
At 15 she suffered a breakdown and was put on anti-depressants after she started self-harming.
Cara then fell in and out of bad habits with drink and drugs, but away from modelling she started to build a successful career in acting.
She landed her first film role in 2012 alongside Keira Knightley in historical drama Anna Karenina.
Three years later she was cast in comedy drama Paper Towns and Peter Pan prequel Pan, then in 2016 she appeared in superhero adventure Suicide Squad as Enchantress.
The same year Cara stepped back from full-time modelling as she focused on acting, and said: “I lost sight of myself and what it meant to be happy, what it meant to be successful.
"I think it all stemmed from a deep-down feeling of wanting people to like me and love me. I knew I had to re-evaluate my life and my goals for my future.”
After lockdown, Cara’s bad habits resurfaced and she has told how she started partying hard — all while juggling more film and TV work, including BBC Three documentary series Planet Sex With Cara Delevingne.
A year later, it spiralled — with Cara’s meltdown at Van Nuys signalling a turning point.
She checked into rehab and started the 12-step programme, cutting off her work commitments to focus on getting better.
Two months after the shock pictures were taken she appeared on the red carpet at Rihanna’s Savage Fenty fashion show, but then lay low again until February last year, when she appeared at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles.
It marked the start of her big comeback — and last September she was back on stage, this time at a Vogue World fashion event in London.
Poised for her return to work, Cara then quietly auditioned for the role of Sally in Cabaret.
Show bosses at London’s Playhouse Theatre announced she had won the part last month.
Cara said at the time: “There are no words to explain the excitement I have to return home to make my stage debut in such an iconic role.
“I am so inspired by the brilliant actors who have played Sally in past productions around the world and in this one in the West End.”
She spent weeks rehearsing — six days a week for eight hours a day — before her debut on Monday.
Defending her casting from criticism, Cara said last week: “Even if I did the best I possibly could, and even if that was really good, people are still going to be like, ‘She doesn’t deserve to be here’.
“I auditioned like anyone else [so] it’s just annoying, but I have to tune that out.”
Cara, who identifies as bisexual and pansexual, has been dating musician Leah Mason, who she met as a child, since 2022. She has previously dated US musician St Vincent and actress Ashley Benson.
She took over the role of Sally from singer Self Esteem, also known as Rebecca Taylor, and she stars with Luke Treadaway, who inherits the role of The Emcee from Scissor Sisters singer Jake Shears.
Cara’s first night saw big crowds and some of her famous pals turn out to support her.
I haven’t done a play since school but it’s the reason why I’ve wanted to act for my whole life
Cara Delevingne
She has been keen to put her stamp on the character. Keeping her posh English accent, she nailed both the comical and hard-hitting scenes, her voice making easy work of big solo numbers including Don’t Tell Mama and the iconic Cabaret.
Cara said: “I wasn’t sure whether I should go and see it before I start, because Jake and Rebecca are both musicians and while I am [a musician], I’m not a singer in the same way.
“I think everyone brings something different. I’m not great at being a carbon copy of someone else.”
Cara will play Sally until June 1, and if the early reviews are anything to go by she has a glittering stage career beckoning.
She said last week before taking her first bow: “I feel more alive and on the edge of a nerve [than ever] and it’s so nice. It’s a wonderful place to be.
“I haven’t done a play since school but it’s the reason why I’ve wanted to act for my whole life.”
