How Did These Stars Stop Smoking?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 42 million people in the United States currently smoke cigarettes, even though smoking increases a person's risk of heart disease, stroke, and cancer. Despite these risks, however, quitting can be extremely challenging. When it comes to giving up cigarettes, famous people experience the same struggles as everyone else. The following celebrities have not only found ways to quit but managed to remain tobacco-free for years (and sometimes decades). Take a closer look at what finally worked for them — and consider giving their techniques for stopping a try.
President Barack Obama
President Obama struggled to quit smoking during his 2008 campaign. He had taken up the habit as a teenager and didn’t successfully kick it until 2011, according to reports from the White House and Obama’s personal physician. Although he was finally able to quit, it wasn’t easy. The president has acknowledged that he still gets the urge to smoke now and then and that he sometimes chews nicotine gum to help quell the craving.
The actor, who won an Emmy for his role as the philandering, whiskey-drinking, chain-smoking ad exec Don Draper on the TV series Mad Men, quit smoking 20 years ago. “It’s glamorous on film, but it’s not glamorous waking up and smelling like an ashtray,” Hamm told People magazine. His role required his character to smoke through all seven seasons of Mad Men, but he and the other actors puffed on herbal — not tobacco — cigarettes on set.
The star of TV's Friends and the movies Horrible Bosses and Office Space was a chain-smoker for years before she reportedly went through an extreme detoxification in 2007, during which she successfully bid farewell to both caffeine and her longtime addiction to cigarettes. What made the difference? Lots of exercise was the key, specifically yoga, a practice Aniston was introduced to by the yoga instructor, and Aniston's friend, Mandy Ingber. “She brought yoga into my life, and it completely changed my life,” Aniston says in the introduction to Ingber’s Yogalosophy video. “It’s one of the most fun workouts I’ve ever had.”
Known for his good looks, affable personality, and natural ability to make people laugh, comedic actor Paul Rudd, who has starred in the movies Knocked Up, Role Models, This Is 40, and Clueless, reportedly quit smoking with the help of the Kerry Gaynor method, a hypnotherapy-based smoking cessation program developed by the Los Angeles hypnotherapist Kerry Gaynor.
Many models smoke to maintain their slim figures (smoking blunts the appetite by damaging taste buds), as well as to pass the time backstage at fashion shows, and Brazilian bombshell Gisele Bündchen was one of them. Citing a desire to be healthier, the Victoria’s Secret beauty, wife of NFL quarterback Tom Brady, and mother of two gave up her habit in 2003 and didn’t obsess about the weight gain that followed. “When I quit smoking, I gained 15 pounds,” she told People magazine. “So? I prefer myself this way. Nothing is worth your health.”
The former host of Comedy Central’s Daily Show started smoking when he was 15 — and wasn't able to kick the habit until December 28, 2000. On Primetime Glick, Stewart explained why he had smoked for so long. “I used cigarettes to fill a hole in me — an emotional void,” he said. “It was an activity that I did to make myself feel better.” Stewart reportedly keeps a gumball machine near his desk so he can grab a piece of gum whenever he has a nicotine craving.
The 1990s supermodel smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for seven years before she successfully quit. (She was eventually diagnosed, at 31, with emphysema.) “I had tried [to quit smoking] many times but always went back to it,” Turlington told O, The Oprah Magazine. “Finally, I just got fed up with not keeping my promise to myself, and I quit cold turkey.” When Turlington attempted to return to modeling six months later, her slight weight gain cost her a job with the designer Yves Saint Laurent, and she decided to quit runway modeling.
The star of The Martian, Invictus, and three Jason Bourne movies puffed for years alongside friend and fellow actor Ben Affleck — until he made an appointment with a Los Angeles hypnotist. After three sessions, Damon said, his cravings were gone for good. "He taught me that the reason you finally quit is because you look at what cigarettes do to you," Damon told Parade magazine. "Once you realize the consequences, it's no longer an option for you to smoke. I think that applies to any addiction."
The former soap opera actress and current cohost of Live! with Kelly and Michael revealed her hidden habit in an interview in Shape magazine. “I was a closet smoker,” she said. “I only did it when I was out with friends or sometimes in my dressing room.” Although Ripa quit smoking when she started having children, she picked up the habit again while shooting the ABC sitcom Hope and Faith. After her costar on that show, Faith Ford, encouraged her to quit again, Ripa replaced the cigarettes with exercise five times a week. She says, “It was a matter of replacing one ritual with another.”
The Academy Award–winning actor, whose movies include The Silence of the Lambs, Hitchcock, and Red 2, officially quit smoking decades ago, but he has admitted that he still feels occasional cravings for a cigarette or a cigar. To avoid a smoking slip, Hopkins reportedly turns to a book recommended by friends and written by the late antismoking advocate Allen Carr (The Easy Way to Stop Smoking). Hopkins described Carr’s method, which centers on the belief that a cycle of fear is what prevents people from quitting successfully, in Britain’s Independent newspaper as “not only easy but unbelievably enjoyable.”
The South African native and Oscar-winning actress, who starred in Monster, Snow White and the Huntsman, and Mad Max: Fury Road, has been photographed smoking cigarettes on several occasions; at one point she was smoking up to three packs a day to cope with stress, according to the British newspaper The Mirror. After several attempts to quit, Theron has reportedly stopped smoking with the aid of hypnotherapy and by embracing a healthier lifestyle that includes yoga and Pilates.