S8 EP4: Cara Delevingne discusses getting sober, engagement rumours, and being Karl Lagerfeld's muse

0:04Hello and welcome back to the Louis Theroux podcast.

0:16Today I'm joined in the studio by model, actress and musician Cara Delevingne. After being scouted as a teenager, Cara quickly became one of the defining fashion models of the 2010s, known for her irreverent personality, sparkling friendship group and distinctive eyebrows, which we talk about in the chat. Throughout this period, she walked for virtually every major luxury brand and became the muse of Chanel's iconic designer, Karl Lagerfeld. I don't know that much about fashion, can you already tell? At the height of her modelling career, she transitioned into acting, appearing in films including Paper Towns and Suicide Squad.

0:57Over the years, Cara has struggled publicly with substance abuse issues. She became sober in 2022, the journey to which Cara speaks about in our chat. Since becoming sober, Cara's embarked on a music career, recently releasing singles I Forgot and Out of My Head from her debut album, Not Normal, which will be released this summer, and which also deals with her recovery journey. That's sort of the inspiration for her creativity on the project. I was curious to speak to Cara, Well, as I mentioned, I'm not a huge fashion buff. This surprises you. Nevertheless, it's the case. And I thought, among other things, it would be a chance to explore the world of haute couture, catwalks.

1:41I've seen Zoolander 1. So I did a bit of research. Obviously, I did more research than that. But all the questions around what's sometimes characterized as both creative, avant-garde even, but occasionally overly controlling and maybe even toxic, we get into. We recorded this conversation in June this year at Spotify HQ the previous evening I'd attended Cara's gig in London, so we kick off talking about that. I was right at the back in the VIP area, maybe even the VVIP area, I was among such personages as Paul McCartney and Woody Harrelson. uh even for me that's elite company i didn't talk to either of them in case you were wondering um millie was with me and she seemed to want me to go over and maybe even coroll them as future podcast guests and i was like you know what really the cool thing is you got to find your moment and and play it very fonzie like you don't want to be going up panting like a fanboy.

2:46Anyway, the moment never came. I never found the inn. And at the end, do you remember they left through almost like a little secret hatch at the back, presumably to be bundled into choppers?

3:01If either of them want to come on the podcast, though. Oh, thank you. Amelie said, if either of them want to come on the podcast, the door is open to a conversation. We can't guarantee anything, but your application will be taken seriously. We also ran into some technical issues in the first five minutes or so of the podcast. So apologies for that. There's no video to begin with. It's not my, I'm not taking them hip for that. That's all on Spotify. A quick warning, this conversation contains strong language and references to drugs. All that, as well as much else besides, coming up.

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4:31L-O-U-I-S. That's shopify.com slash louis.

4:48Did you have a late one? Yeah, I find it very hard to sleep after shows. Wind down? I was at the show last night, as you may know. I enjoyed it very much. Good. Guess who I was standing next to? I don't know. Were you thinking of guessing? Paul McCartney, yeah, maybe. Were you standing next to Paul? Yeah. I was going to say Charles Delevingne. That's what I thought. That was my second choice. That's your dad. That is my dad. What was Paul doing there? Because I know Stella and I've worked with Stella for a long time. Stella McCartney, fashion designer. Of course. And I think Paul and Nancy took a bit of a shine to me.

5:24Stella wasn't able to make it last night, but they came and it was very sweet. By the way, I enjoyed the show. It must be pressure. You knew you were performing in front of Paul McCartney. That's got to feel a bit like pressure, don't you think? Yeah, I tried for the London shows to not know who was coming, but then people text me so I know. My band didn't know and they found out afterwards and were gutted. Not gutted, the show was good but there were issues. Playing under a train track is hard because the vibrations. Really? There's so many wires and so many synths that wires wiggle out very easily so a lot of the time there was nothing in my ears.

6:04I couldn't hear anything. Really? But no one knows because no one knows what the music sounds like. so I could say anything or sing anything I wanted and no one would know. It's kind of fun. For viewers or listeners, we should make it clear that we were in a venue, I guess it's called Leak Street. Leak Street, yeah. And it was in a railway arch, which gives it a kind of cool industrial feel, almost like a cave. It's like a cave. Like the cavern of Liverpool legend where our friend Paul used to perform. There you go. But I didn't hear any train vibrations, but that made... Because you wouldn't be able to because it's so loud.

6:38But before I go on, you can hear it and it's loud. You can feel it too, almost. So apparently that's what happens. You're accomplished now in many fields. And it's also striking that you were twice named Model of the Year in the British Fashion Awards, 2012, 2014. You were one of the most recognisable figures in fashion, if not the most, with your signature eyebrows, which I'm looking at now. Still there. Do you get tired of being asked about those? Less now. It's been a while. It's nice hearing about them. They've missed the attention. Nice to have a signature. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I'm always curious about, I'd love to talk about your music, but I also want to talk about what kind of brought you to everyone's attention in the first place.

7:22Yeah. You were signed, how old were you when you were signed as a model? Seventeen. Seventeen as a model. Can you talk a little bit about how it all took off? What was the process? I had been scouted a few times, mostly out at raves, which was kind of funny. The first time I was scouted, I was 16. But I thought it was so funny that people thought I could be a model because I felt like a feral Chucky doll, to put it politely. But it happened a few times, and then I was at school. I dropped out of school. I was very depressed. My parents said, you need to have a job if you're going to leave. And I said, okay.

8:02my sister was at a modeling agency called storm that seemed like the best fit uh so i went there and it was not something i had a huge interest in i didn't have a huge interest in anything at that point apart from music really uh but i worked hard i worked really hard i did everything i needed to do i made some great friends along the way and then i got a job and i was like i've made it this is everything like this is what I can do for the rest of my life um because the idea of making money modeling felt really crazy because people really were not receptive to me for a long time I was small really small compared to people and how tall are you five seven and a half they'd put on my card five eight or five nine and for a model that would be considered small What would be a typical size for a model?

8:535 '10". Right. For runway, for sure. So in a way, you didn't fit the classical expectation of what you would look like. Yes. But nevertheless, you were blowing up. I don't personally think there was anything that striking about me. I didn't know that my eyebrows were very different to anyone else's, I guess. But at some point, Burberry took notice and they hired me. and I'm grateful to this day for that because I, yeah, it catapulted something. Was that a big moment? My notes, I was trying to find out, what was the moment when you kind of took off? You know, that you actually sort of, it became, we felt like, oh, this is the coming person, like this is the new face that we're excited about.

9:35I don't know. I actually have no idea. Have you blurred it out a bit? I think it's when people started comparing me to Kate Moss because I was small and we were the same agency. And I remember there were articles being like, the new Kate Moss, which wasn't great because I think I could never live up to that, to her. Obviously, it's a compliment. But I didn't believe it at the time. And it was exciting. It was so exciting. Like I had a job and I was so confused and shocked and seeing a billboard of myself and meeting new people and it was incredible. But it definitely didn't feel real and it definitely felt like it was someone else's dream though.

10:23Really? A little bit. Why? I didn't want to be known for that. Not in a bad way. I just... It wasn't my passion. and now I have such an appreciation for fashion but I I really didn't care about that stuff at that point creatively it didn't fulfill me and it didn't let me breathe in a way it felt like it was quite I had to like pause a part of myself like I was moving and working a lot but a part of me was stagnant from the world from the outside world obviously uh to the non-experts such as myself the world of fashion it looks glamorous yeah looks relative and this is gonna and i know it probably isn't but it looks relatively undemanding yeah you're like for sure this is gonna sound offensive no no you're like just walking up and down sashaying changing their outfits and um you obviously you're in the chair getting made up really boring probably early starts a lot of like just boring boring a lot of sitting around a lot of waiting people like you're such a good model and I was like what does that even mean it's not a skill it is it's it's there's a skill to it for sure which is talk about the skill well knowing angles and lighting and cameras and how to move and how to pose it's a weird skill it's not really skilled it is needed for anything else walking you can be good and all bad at walking but it is it is hard in the way that I also think you're constantly aware of what you look like before the age of social media even though it was happening during the age and the beginning of social media you become inherently insecure you are constantly worried about how you look and what you look like and that creates just a whole another level of I've never met people who are more insecure either not always but it does breed that so it's hard mentally and yeah there's a lot of sitting around and waiting and it's not as glamorous as people think i think a lot of the time you see the pictures when really it's models sitting on the floor waiting around smoking smoking so much yeah diet cokes all around you uh you had a partnership a sort of professional relationship with carl lagerfeld becoming his muse for designs for chanel carl said of you have you heard what he said charlie chaplin or that i've got that one as well she's not as i won't do the german accent carl Lagerfeld is a kind of...

12:58French-German, it always sounded like to me. German? He looks like he's out of Zoolander. 100%. He's the full caricature of himself. He's got, like, candy floss-like white hair in a ponytail, a collar with three buttons on the front of the collar that looks like a Harry Hill comedy collar. Really long. And then he's got his jackets, and then he's got pendants and necklaces around his jackets. And the fingerless gloves. Fingerless gloves and dark glasses. It's almost like, how can I look really sinister and intimidating? Yeah. You look at people in fashion like that and you're like, really? That's the guy deciding what looks good?

13:32Yeah. He said, she's not a standout beauty. Yeah. Was it Bacon who said, there is not beauty without some strangeness in the proportions? Yeah. He was brutally honest. Sometimes too much, probably. I think, yeah. But I agree with him. I think he meant it as a compliment. Yeah. But that's what I meant by the Kate Moss thing, is that, like, I always said, if I'd been around in the 90s, I wouldn't have been a supermodel. It's because of the time and Instagram and everything else. Because I don't think I stood a chance. If we're talking about really, like, superficially beautiful people, I don't think I compared.

14:14That's my own opinion. People can have different ones. He went on to say she's the Charlie Chaplin. Yeah. Here we go. Which I love. Of the fashion world. She's a kind of genius, like a character out of a silent movie. I would see her better in a silent movie than a talkie because she over-accents the movement. I think at that point I was so expressive. That's what he's saying. I hadn't had Botox yet either. Almost like a Louise Brooks, like the, what's the word, damsel in distress or the woman in the silent movie who's having to do it all with her movement, her face in a movement. It was always about slapstick comedy and just movement.

14:54Really? Girls admire her like they used to do Kate Moss. They all want to be as free as her. Free. Yeah. Were you aware of doing something differently? I was, and I wasn't aware of this, but in the 90s and 80s and models and everyone was celebrated for their uniqueness, And I think when I started, fashion became more like an army lineup. Everyone looked the same and was so scared to speak up. And like lack of food, lack of energy. Everyone's just very like, I don't know, doing their job, I guess. And I was also doing my job, but I did it in a different way. I was trying to have fun all the time.

15:40And again, that came from a lot of sitting around and waiting. I'm not good at that. you know I meant to be this like very buttoned up beautiful person but underneath I just want to make funny faces and I don't know I know I knew it was different for people because people really didn't like it and then people also really liked it it was confusing it was I was mom I and I liked that well it's I mean look I'm gonna make this about me which is I've found that the things that have given me whatever success I've had it's been I can't do the things you're supposed to do like conventional broadcasting stuff.

16:17But whatever your perceived, I know it's a cliche, disability is, you make it into your superpower, right? Isn't that the same thing? Yes. That's what you're talking about. Exact same thing. Jamila Jamil said of Karl Lagerfeld, he was a ruthless, fatphobic misogynist. I remember we had a tweet battle about it. Did you? Kind of. It was just after he died. It was like the day after. And I just landed in Milan. Okay. And I was so annoyed at her. I was like, just give it a second. Okay. He was a flawed human. Like, I get it. I understand. He said horrible things about women. But he was a really kind person underneath it.

17:04I mean, the fashion industry itself may be inherently misogynistic and fatphobic. But either way, I just think it was rude. We're fine now. Obviously, it was a sore point to read that stuff that she had written the day after he died. I think I, yeah, it came from a place of emotion and not rational thought. I love that you had a tweet battle. We did. That feels like the model equivalent of a duel, you know, with pistols. How do you Do you take turns Like they tweet Then you tweet Then they tweet No I don't know It was like a full rampage Because it was We both were writing a lot She's very sweet And I also think she You know Someone needs to have an opinion On all these things How do you decide When the tweet battle's over And who's won I don't know It's a really good question I don't think people win That's the point You just Have it out You say Your piece and I deleted that app.

18:09You know who wins? The people running the tech platforms. There you go. Right, driving the content, driving engagement.

18:20I'm sorry, I'm laughing because I want to move on from Karl Lagerfeld and then my eyes dropped on something else. Oh. But it doesn't... No, come on. Okay, fine. 2019, he said, if you don't want your pants pulled about, don't become a model. Join a nunnery. There'll always be a place for you in the convent. yeah i miss that well i mean anyway i've laughed and trivialized it that's a rough one uh if you don't want your pants pulled about don't become a model the kindest interpretation you could make is that he just means you're gonna you're gonna be fussed with oh i don't think he means like i don't think he means sexually assaulted maybe it does sound like he might what's interesting at that point during fashion the stuff that was going on in terms of sexual assault was so rampant That's why I was like...

19:04Really? Yeah, you're going to be fussed about with the... Again, you have to get so used to having so many hands on you that you have no idea whose is what and what is where. But did you just say that within the world of fashion, sexual assault was rampant at that time? Really bad, yeah. Go on. Well, I just, you know, I think... I remember going to, like, test shoots, which are photographers. Why would you become a photographer of models, a straight man? unless you have some want to sleep with models, right, I guess. It's a good way in there. Okay. I don't know. Maybe they want to do it because they really like taking pictures of women, sure.

19:42But you can't be a straight man and be a professional and not, you know what I mean? You can. Not try and sleep with models. I would hope. I didn't meet one. Really? Not at that point. And I'm talking about young photographers. I'm not talking about older, more established people. Yeah, they would set. So test shoots are they send models to do a test shoot, which is just photos for your book. So, but they would offer girls alcohol way too young, start being sleazy. I think I was pretty hard headed at that point. So I was like, this isn't okay. I just remember being on a shoot with like two girls who are younger than me, 16, 15.

20:21And their moms were there and they were like, okay, we want you to get naked and get in this bathtub together. And I was like, I'm not doing that. But their mom said, yes. And I was like, I'm the only one who's of age, and this feels really weird, and that photo is somewhere, and it's horrible. It looks like these young skinny girls in a bathtub, naked, being like... It's just, that obviously is not sexual assault, but there was a lot. You know, the age of Terry Richardson, and yeah, it was everywhere. Terry Richardson, he was like the New York photographer who... Loved getting his dick out. He'd get his dick out on when he was doing his photo shoots.

20:59um was it how how quickly were you making you know massive you know because you'd gone from not having any money left school 15 your parents are like well you can live here but we're not going to give you a lot of money like you've got to sort yourself out financially and then suddenly you're making millions a year no god no that took a while uh because high fashion doesn't pay a lot Right. It's the catalogue. It's the more commercial, fast fashion, I guess, you make more money from. High fashion, you're lucky to do it. Unless you do perfume, that pays the most for some reason. Behind the scenes, there was substance issues.

21:44Yeah. Can we say that? Yeah, yeah. The whole time? I mean, no, not the whole time. I wasn't doing drugs. All the time. But my relationship with them was the problem. Yeah, they were my best friend. They were my support. They were the thing that I could control my emotions with, I thought, you know. They kept me going. They soothed me when I was alone. I hated being alone. It was all of those things. My relationship with them was the problem. And it was like that thing of like I can work so hard and then that's my like celebration. you know instead of working for so long or doing a film for a period of time and having a week off the week wouldn't be a holiday and rest it would be benders caning it which isn't nice for the body or mind i suppose which can be fun right and then isn't sustainable no uh indefinitely was part of it um getting through uh fashion shows or you could you could you do those sober yeah yeah yeah that wasn't a problem i did the mostly sober i remember i did i think it was the biggest time and i was opening a bunch of shows opening shows like walking out first top shop was one of them it was a bunch of different shows yeah in london fashion week and i had not slept and i had to go and do like three shows that day I remember opening Topshop and I was walking like a snake, almost, like waving.

23:15But people thought it was on purpose, but it's because I couldn't walk properly. What had you been taking? Probably ketamine, cocaine, alcohol, I imagine. I read that alcohol was never really your thing. No, it was always there. I just wasn't what I liked. I wouldn't drink and not do drugs. I would, for a long period of time, I only did drugs. I didn't drink at all. I don't know why. I just didn't like it. I had the hangovers. Because I never got, I think in my 20s, I didn't, I never came down. I always felt like, you know, I was just working and partying and it was fine. But alcohol, like the feeling of being hungover, absolutely not.

23:58The spinning, any of that. Couldn't handle that. It also felt too out of control feeling, even though ketamine is, being in a chaos, pretty out of control, I would say. I've never taken ketamine. I don't know if I'm embarrassed to say that. No. What's it like? It's a horse tranquilizer. It's a tranquilizer in general because you can get given ketamine in a hospital. Okay. Not just for horses. No, I remember being sold like rhino ketamine, but it wasn't really rhino ketamine. It's just how people sold it. But yeah, and when I first started doing it too, I would do like, if anyone who takes ketamine or has taken drugs knows, you do a tiny bit of ketamine and that's enough.

24:41But I would be doing like really, really long, big lines because I just wanted to disappear, not like have a little bit and feel weird. I wanted to just completely lose consciousness, tranquilize myself, I suppose. suppose my tolerance was so high with that stuff to the point where i'd go to a party and i'd give some to like you know a six foot five man and he'd be flawed by doing a tiny amount compared to what i was doing which is always the same man or it could be a different man like a big guy would be like that's a lot you know i'll have that much and i was like no way this will knock you out and it It was kind of that bravado thing.

25:22He's like, if you can handle it, I can. I can. I was like, you do some of that and you'll be on the floor. And it was true every time. Which I was, at that point, it was a bit like, oh, I'm so hardcore. It was probably very scary for people. Did you think this is what we do in our peer group? Like, this is just part of, this is the scene. Were you escaping from something? Were you like, I'm having fun and I'm young and this is kind of the whirly gig? Like, live while you're alive. All of it. All of that. I was escaping, but I was also like, I work so hard. I get to have fun and I loved... I had so much fun.

26:00I have incredible memories and I wouldn't change any of it. But there's also an element to escape in that, for sure. There always was, I think. You mentioned earlier that when you were 15, you basically had some mental health issues. Would you call it a breakdown? for sure because i lost touch with not reality but i was suicidal and hurting myself and wanting to there was just the loudest voice in my head telling me i needed to disappear and all of it it was just not nice and i'd had that i had that when i was pretty young when i was a kid i just remember going into the sea and trying to swim and keep swimming until i drowned not that I thought like oh but I was like I'm just gonna swim and until I can't swim anymore you know your mom had has talking uh has talking what language am I speaking I've never heard you I went into my native German talking has talking about uh your mom spoken about her uh having mental health issues when you were growing up.

27:12Yeah, and I think that, and substance abuse on and off in some form. But also mental health issues and also physical health issues caused by a multitude of things. She went to Thailand and drank some tea by a monk that was meant to heal her and that caused her bowels to explode. That's when she nearly died when I was young. Really? And that was not her fault, you know. So that was really tough. You know, she was young and she had a colostomy bag and that was really, yeah, that was horrible. She's a medical marvel though. Doctors are like, the fact that she's up and walking and talking and alive is a miracle.

28:07Well, I'm just wondering whether, because you've said in the past, oh, sometimes it felt like you had to be a mother to your mom a little bit. And that experience growing up of, you know, whatever the difficulties that she was going through trickling down, was that part of what fed into what you were going through when you were 15, do you think? Yeah. How do you explain what was happening with you? uh yeah i think i spent most of my time concerned with my mother's well-being and health that mine didn't come into it and i was so tied and enmeshed with her ups and downs and highs and lows that whenever she was low i was low and i just that's when my sleeping problem started because i couldn't sleep sleep ever because I was so scared if I woke up she'd be dead or she wouldn't be there or you know I was always calling into her room and checking if she was breathing and stuff because I loved her so much and she had been sick and a lot of that wasn't her fault and it isn't her fault and there's a lot of peace I've made with it especially because of understanding substances and mental health now from my own perspective.

29:25I had so much anger, not at her, but at the world that I didn't release and I didn't let move through me. So I just took it out on myself. And she has a similar thing where the pain that she'd caused made her guilty. So she takes it out on herself. There's just a cycle. There's a pattern there, which is just, I feel so bad for what I've done. So I'm not going to let myself move on from it, which is, you know something I work with and work on a lot. Where do you think your anger was coming from? Was it part of that? Was it resentment at the position you felt you'd been put in or something else?

30:04Angry that I couldn't save her. Angry I couldn't fix the problem because I really thought I could. I think that's the root of where it came from.