Harry Potter actor Tom Felton speaks out about his past struggles with alcohol and substance abuse.
Felton, who played antagonist Draco Malfoy in all eight Harry Potter movies, opened up about how he started “drinking to escape” in his twenties in his recent memoirs Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Chaos of Growing Up as a Wizard. The actor, now 35, says it wasn’t long before his alcohol use spiraled out of control and spilled over into his professional life.
“Drinking becomes a habit at the best of times. If you drink to escape a situation, even more so. The habit poured out of the bar and, from time to time, continued,” Felton writes. in a clip shared with Entertainment Weekly.
“It got to the point where I wouldn’t think about having a drink while I was working. I’d show up unprepared, not the professional I wanted to be. However, the alcohol wasn’t the problem. It was the symptom.”
Felton shares what ultimately ‘cut through’ his anger and denial to start the road to recovery
Eventually, Felton’s loved ones began to worry about his substance abuse and staged an intervention to convince the actor to enter rehab.
“Everyone in the room had written me a letter. I was listening to Jade [Olivia, Felton’s former girlfriend] and the others when they told me how concerned they were about my behavior, my drinking, and my substance abuse. I was unable to hear them,” he wrote.
Felton says he was angry and in denial, but in the end, the letter from the person “he least knew” in the room would have the most impact.
“My lawyer, whom I had barely met in person, spoke with quiet honesty,” he said of the warning that finally dawned on him. ‘Tom,’ he said, ‘I don’t know you very well, but you seem like a nice guy. I just want to tell you that this is the seventeenth intervention I’ve had in my career. they are now dead. Don’t be the twelfth.'”
Though it took Felton a few stints in rehab to get back on track, the actor says he’s sharing his story to end the stigma surrounding mental health, rehabilitation and help others who may be To have a hard time.
“I’m not the only one with these feelings. Just as we all experience physical health problems at some point in our lives, we all experience mental health problems too. That’s no shame,” he wrote. “It’s not a sign of weakness. And part of the reason I made the decision to write these pages is the hope that by sharing my experiences I can help someone else who is struggling.”
“I’m no longer shy about raising my hands and saying, I’m not okay. To this day, I never know what version of myself I’ll wake up with,” he continued.
“That brings us back to the concept of rehabilitation and the stigma that comes with the word. I definitely don’t want to dismiss the idea of therapy – it’s a difficult first step to take – but I do want to do my part to normalize I think we all need it in one form or another, so why shouldn’t it be normal to talk openly about how we’re feeling?”
Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Chaos of Growing Up as a Wizard is now available in stores and online.