Cara Delevingne Opens Up About Her Struggles with Addiction and Her Ambitious Music Career Ahead

JITTERY and erratic at the airport in Los Angeles, an intoxicated Cara Delevingne wandered around barefoot after days of raucous partying at the wild Burning Man festival.

Photos of quickly spread worldwide, making her realise she needed help — and four years on from the incident, she is now sober, and has turned her life around.

Cara Delevingne on stage in Berlin at the Betonhalle Credit: BackGrid Cara has taken the next step in her rollercoaster life by launching a music career Credit: BackGrid

And this week has taken the next step in her rollercoaster life — launching a music career.

The Sun was at her very first public concert on Monday night, at the Betonhalle, a modestly-sized former crematorium in Berlin.

There she bared her soul across ten deeply personal tracks which tell the story of her battle with drink and drugs, how she was left struggling to find joy in life, and how she has now found love with her childhood sweetheart.

Now 33 and sporting a shaggy brown hairdo, wore baggy blue jeans as she walked on stage at the Betonhalle, where tickets for the show cost just £26.55.

She looked worlds away from with the world’s most famous eyebrows, whose picture was plastered across every billboard and magazine in the early 2010s — but it’s clear she is only now working out who she is as a person.

After the paparazzi photos of her at the airport made global waves in 2022, she checked herself into rehab and entered a 12-step programme.

Cara, the daughter of property developer and the goddaughter of , was first discovered and signed to Storm Model Management aged 17 and has an estimated net worth of £50million.

However, her mum struggled with when was a child, and she has since told of the major impact it had on her.

And past traumas feature in her lyrics.

One of the most powerful songs she has written is called The Mask, and seemingly touches on how she felt controlled by the persona which took over when she drank.

On the track, she sings: “Just another nightmare and the same mistake, don’t know how much more of this my heart can take.”

Later in the track, she continues: “So in love, so many lies.

“Don’t even know what the truth is.

“The perfect disguise, so no one can see all my bruises.

“Try my best to not give in to her demands, try not to make a scene but she has other plans.

“The Mask has a mind of her own.

Cara  pictured at the airport in LA in 2022 Credit: BackGrid Cara before her rehab Credit: BackGrid

“Nobody knows who I am, who I am without her.

“I want to know who I am, who I’d be without her.

“She takes and she takes, doesn’t care if I’m breaking.

“I can’t be alone.

“Or I’m right back there in my nightmare.

“I’m stuck in the night where every road leads to nowhere.”

Another song, called Lights Up, sees admit she felt deeply unhappy at the peak of her career, despite making millions as a model and actress in films such as and Paper Towns.

She sings: “Hey, look, Mum, I made it. Do you think they know I hate it?

“Sometimes I need a friend, sometimes I can’t pretend.

“I give up giving up.

“Hate to say that it’s a lot, but it’s a lot.

“I’m lost and I’m broke and you want me to give you more.

“But the cracks have started to show, each direction is the wrong way to go.”

In the chorus, she continues: “The show must go on.

“I’m asleep when I wake up, can you cover my heart with make-up?

Cara in 2013 on the catwalk for Victoria’s Secret Credit: Rex Cara, front, with parents Charles and Pandora and sisters Chloe and Poppy in 2002 Credit: Rex

“So young but I feel so old.

“Always trying to change who I am inside.

“I’m weak but my skin looks strong.

“Where the f*** do I belong?”

Another track, Not Normal, has similar themes.

In it sings: “Who is she?

“This girl I’ve been chasing for ever?

“I can’t catch her.

“She’s just a human, wild and raw.

“I wonder what she was made for.”

Nervously speaking to the audience a few songs into her set, Cara said: “It’s my first show, really, on this little tour I’m doing.

“I’m super-nervous, guys.

“I care so much.

“I can’t thank you enough for being here, it really means so much.”

The Sun first revealed in April how and last Friday saw her release her first two singles, Out Of My Head and I Forgot.

At the concert, which was almost sold out, she was only on stage for 35 minutes and left before 9pm, but during her brief set she raced through ten songs which are set to feature on her as-yet untitled debut album, expected to be released later this year.

And there are major plans afoot for the fledgling singer.

A music insider said: “Cara is a household name and a huge star already, but she is determined to make music that is from the heart.”

In fact Warner Records is thought to be ploughing millions into her music career and has already created a high-end seven-minute music video and hired out a special sound space in London to debut Cara’s music to industry experts.

The label is funding her tour, which will be a loss-maker, but is regarded as an investment into her future success.

The cost of staging music tours has skyrocketed recently, and because the venues where Cara is playing are small and scattered across multiple countries, the likelihood of her tour merely breaking even is seen as small.

Cara met her singer girlfriend Minke, right, when they were teenagers at public school Credit: Instagram/@minke Cara says: ‘There have been many points in my life where music has really saved me and I just wanted to be able to do the same for other people’ Credit: Getty – Contributor

But the insider added: “It’s all part of the plan for her to hone her craft on stage, get a buzz going about her music, and show people she is a credible artist who is prepared to put in the hard graft.

“She doesn’t want to just rely on her fame to carry her into the charts.

“She wants to show she is serious about this and is putting everything into making it work.”

Shortly before she took to the stage on Monday evening, Cara told she hopes her music will help people see the real her for the first time.

She said: “I think there was a part of this process where if anyone knows who I am or have known anything I’ve done before in the past, they’ve probably seen me in a magazine or on a billboard or through their phone.

“So I wanted it to feel like me as a person was breaking through that and try my best to be like, ‘I am a person, I’m flawed, I’m a human and we all have pain and suffering but music can be the one connector of that’.

“I think there have been many points in my life where music has really saved me and I just wanted to be able to do the same for other people.”

On songwriting, she added: “As an English person I was never very good at dealing with anger, so this is the healthiest way I’ve found to release all of that and express those emotions.”

It’s clear Cara really is in a healthier place now, and that is partly thanks to her girlfriend, singer Minke, whose real name is Leah Mason.

They first met as teenagers at posh Bedales public school in Hampshire.

They reconnected 12 years later at an concert and have been together since June 2022 — three months before Cara got sober.

Cara has written about their romance on the song Crazy Baby, which was the catchiest track of her set and seems destined to be a future single.

On it, Cara recalls “smoking together at school” and staying up all night together, recalling how they always had a spark.

She sings: “I always knew that we were never just friends, I guess you finally broke up with that boyfriend.”

And in the chorus she continues: “ ’Cause when you kiss me I get a little bit crazy, baby.

“Maybe I’m out of my head.

“I’m sorry, this is a love song.”

Cara first expressed an interest in music aged 16, when mastermind signed her to his management company, but she eventually decided to focus on acting and modelling.

However, a stint as Sally Bowles in the musical Cabaret in the West End in 2024 helped to persuade her to make the jump into music.

Tonight she will be back on stage in , and this Sunday and Monday night she will play at the London venue 26 Leake Street, beneath Waterloo Station, as part of the series of shows aimed at building up her musical credibility.

And with the grit she showed on stage in Berlin, it’s clear Cara is determined to make music her latest success story.