HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – NOVEMBER 18: Denzel Washington attends the Los Angeles Premiere of Paramount Pictures “Gladiator II” at TCL Chinese Theatre on November 18, 2024 in Hollywood, California.
Originally appeared on E! Online
Denzel Washington is taking care of his body going into his final act.
The Oscar winner, who turns 70 in December, candidly reflected on his decades-long relationship with alcohol, and why he made the decision to give it up for good.
“I’ve done a lot of damage to the body,” Washington told Esquire in an interview published Nov. 20. “We’ll see. I’ve been clean. Be ten years this December.
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“I stopped at sixty and I haven’t had a thimble’s worth since,” he continued. “Things are opening up for me now — like being seventy. It’s real. And it’s okay. This is the last chapter — if I get another thirty, what do I want to do? My mother made it to ninety-seven.”
The "Gladiator II" star explained that when it came to drinking, he'd pause while filming, and then pick back up when the shoot wrapped.
“I never drank while I was working or preparing,” he explained. “I would clean up, go back to work — I could do both. However, many months of shooting, bang, it’s time to go. Then, boom. Three months of wine, then time to go back to work.”
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He continued, “But drinking was a fifteen-year pattern. And truth be told, it didn’t start in ’99.”
Specifically, he shared how his penchant for fine wine made it more difficult to realize he was developing unhealthy patterns.
“Wine is very tricky,” the "Fences" actor said of his then-vice. “It’s very slow. It ain’t like, boom, all of a sudden. And part of it was we built this big house in 1999 with a ten-thousand-bottle wine cellar, and I learned to drink the best. So I’m gonna drink my ‘61s and my ‘82s and whatever we had.”
“Wine was my thing, and now I was popping $4,000 bottles just because that’s what was left,” he noted. “And then later in those years I’d call Gil Turner’s Fine Wines & Spirits on Sunset Boulevard and say, ‘Send me two bottles, the best of this or that.’ And my wife’s saying, ‘Why do you keep ordering just two?’ I said, ‘Because if I order more, I’ll drink more.’”
And he justified it by looking at it as a wine hobby.
He added, “I had this ideal idea of wine tastings and all that — which is what it was at first,” he said. “And that’s a very subtle thing. I mean, I drank the best. I drank the best. And fifteen years into it: Send me two bottles, and make it good stuff, but just two. And I’d drink them both over the course of the day.”
Now alcohol-free for almost a decade alcohol free, the Glory star shared that he also got proactive about making another change with his overall fitness. And he has pal Lenny Kravitz to thank.
“I’m doing the best I can. And not only alcohol — forget all that. Strength,” Washington told Esquire. “About two years ago my good friend, my little brother, Lenny Kravitz, said, ‘D, I wanna hook you up with a trainer.’ And he did, and he’s another man of God. I started with him February of last year. He makes the meals for me and we’re training, and I’m now 190-something pounds on my way to 185.”
Washington revealed that he couldn’t agree more after seeing a picture of himself alongside his wife of 40 years, Pauletta Washington at the 2022 Academy Awards.
“I was looking at pictures of myself and Pauletta at the Academy Awards for Macbeth, and I’m just looking fat,” he said. “with this dyed hair, and I said, ‘Those days are over, man.’ I feel like I’m getting strong. Strong is important.”
Keep reading for more stars who have opened up about their sobriety journey…
