Kit Harington says he had suicidal thoughts amid Game of Thrones fame: “I went through some pretty horrible stuff"

The Times of London

“Things that have happened to me since Thrones ended, and that were happening during Thrones, were of a pretty traumatic nature and they did include alcohol,” Harington told London's Sunday Times of hitting rock bottom battling depression and alcohol addiction and checking into a $132,000 per month Connecticut rehab facility the aftermath of Game of Thrones. "You get to a place where you feel like you are a bad person, you feel like you are a shameful person," he said. "And you feel that there’s no way out, that’s just who you are. And getting sober is the process of going, ‘No, I can change.’ One of my favorite things I learnt recently is that the expression ‘a leopard doesn’t change its spots’ is completely false: that a leopard actually does change its spots. I just think that’s the most beautiful thing. It really helped. That was something I kind of clung to; the idea that I could make this huge fundamental change in who I was and how I went about my life.” Asked if he felt suicidal, Harington hesitated before responding: “I will give you an answer to that question: the answer is yes. Yes of course. I went through periods of real depression where I wanted to do all sorts of things.” He added that he is speaking out in the hope that it will “maybe help someone, somewhere. But I definitely don’t want to be seen as a martyr or special. I’ve been through something, it’s my stuff. If it helps someone, that’s good.” Harington has now been sober two-and-a-half years and is feeling great now that he and wife Rose Leslie are parents. Life is “wonderful," he said. “I have a child and my relationship is brilliant … I’m a very, very happy, content, sober man.”