All the Celebrities Who Quit Smoking & How They Did It

Publish date: 2024-06-07

Kelly Ripa, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Aniston, and more of Hollywood’s elites used to smoke cigarettes. But these days, smoking almost seems retro — especially with vaping dominating the news headlines when it comes to harmful nicotine addiction — which may be why many celebrities who previously had no qualms with lighting up are now calling it quits. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of former smokers has been greater than the number of current smokers since 2002.

And because Hollywood doesn’t really like doing things the “normal” way, some stars have taken unique approaches to kick their habit — including hypnotherapy (Adele, Aaron Eckhart), and e-cigarettes and yoga (Jennifer Aniston, Catherine Zeta-Jones). One outlier: Lady Gaga, who claims to have done it the old fashioned way: cold turkey.

If you’re a smoker who wants to quit, one of these celebrity-approved methods just might do the trick (or at the very least inspire you to give quitting a serious try). You can also call the Quitline Service at 1-800-QUIT-NOW (1-800-784-8669), a free telephone support service that can help people who want to stop smoking or using tobacco.

No one claims it will be easy, but it’s one of the best things you can do for your health. And hey, you’ll be in good company!

A version of this article was originally published in January 2014.

Natasha Lyonne
Poker Face star Natasha Lyonne recently opened up about quitting smoking in a profile with Variety. “I’ve been putting it off for so long,” she said. “I’m naturally wired for self-destructive crutches. I fucking love a vice.” According to the outlet, the actress is using Nicorette packs to let go of the habit.
Paris Jackson
Paris Jackson said in a new profile with SPIN that she’s “the happiest and healthiest I’ve ever been.” The singer also revealed to the outlet she got rid of a very harmful habit: smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day.
Gisele Bündchen
We think she's always looked great, but in her early modeling days, Gisele Bündchen says she relied on cigarettes to help her stay thin before quitting in 2003. Although she gained 15 pounds in the process, she says it was worth it.
"I was drinking a lot of red wine, smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day, and eating cheeseburgers all day," she told Harper's Bazaar in 2009. "I was treating my body, which is my temple and my best friend, as my worst enemy."
Whoopi Goldberg
Whoopi Goldberg has been public about her attempts to quit smoking both on her personal social media and also on The View — and finally quit for good in 2012 announcing on Twitter.
Prince Harry
Thanks in large part to the influence of wife Meghan Markle, Prince Harry also kicked his smoking habit. “Harry has lost weight, started a healthier diet and even gave up smoking cigarettes,” a source shared with People in June 2018.
Prince Harry’s partying lifestyle was totally left behind when he met Meghan. And because of her, he found better outlets for his trauma and grief, going to counseling, practicing yoga, chanigng his diet and more.
Rumer Willis
Rumer Willis is opening up about her struggle to quit smoking through a new campaign with Nicorette, #StartStoppingShoutOut. Willis watched mom Demi Moore quit cold turkey before she ever picked up her first cigarette as a teen — 20 years later, she knows better than most about the ups and downs of kicking this particular habit, and she wants to help others do the same.
“Say to yourself, I’m going to take five minutes and if I still want it, I can reconsider then,” Willis tells SheKnows in a new exclusive interview. “And then after that five minutes, I’ll just keep trying five more minutes, five minutes at a time and seeing if maybe there’s something else you can do. Make yourself a pot of tea. Go outside, take a little walk. You find find something that’s a replacement.”
Jon Stewart
Emmy winner Jon Stewart stopped smoking in the early 2000s. “I used cigarettes to fill a hole in me — an emotional void,” he said in an early aughts interview. In 2015, a story in Entertainment Weekly illustrated how Stewart moved on to chewing gum.
Lauren Graham
Gilmore Girls star Lauren Graham had to quit smoking early on after the series started, her co-star Scott Patterson recently revealed to The New York Times. Apparently, the rapid-fire dialogue didn’t allow for any shortness of breath.
“She needed her wind, and I needed my wind,” he said.
Charlie Sheen
Actor Charlie Sheen took to Twitter on the 4th of July to celebrate…one year of not smoking. In a letter (or poem?) to his lungs, he wrote:
it was
one year ago TODAY,
that i quit smoking !
He went on to say that if he could go back in time and never have started, he’d do so — and he implored anyone “on the fence about quitting, trust me;
the sooner the better !”
What his letter didn’t include, unfortunately? Details on what helped him kick the habit!
Lady Gaga
As People reported, Lady Gaga revelaed that she quit smoking in an interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s New Music Daily. “I’m not smoking any more, but I’d smoke 40 cigarettes all day long,” she told the host, adding: “I completely quit — I quit cold turkey. But it was so hard. If you don’t smoke, don’t smoke! Because quitting is worse. It is so brutal. And I will never smoke again because I think I saw Jesus for an entire week. It was so awful.”
Cameron Diaz
Cameron Diaz may be super health-conscious now, but in the ’90s, the actress was puffing up to 20 cigarettes a day. She says good, old-fashioned guilt ultimately helped her quit.
“I gave up because my parents were upset that I was smoking so much and I was setting a bad example. It preyed on my conscience. I was into roll-your-own, and I was killing myself,” she said, according to Glamour.
Kelly Ripa
Back in 2007, Kelly Ripa told David Letterman that she quit smoking for six years, starting after she got pregnant with her first child, Michael. “But when I started doing Hope and Faith, the reviews were horrible. So I picked up a cigarette and I took a puff. And before I knew it, I was a closet smoker.” So, Ripa exercised and took anti-depressant Welbutrin for three weeks to quit.
Adele
Adele, who used to smoke up to 25 cigarettes a day, decided to give up smoking for her health and for her kids.
“I absolutely loved it, but it’s not that fucking cool when I’m dying from a smoking-related illness and my kid is, like, devastated,” she told People in 2015.
Susan Hepburn, a specialist who reportedly helped Adele quit, says hypnosis is the way to go.
“I help you ‘delete’ the connections and associations that make you crave a cigarette,” Hepburn told the U.K.’s Metro. “You will, quite simply, no longer want to smoke.”
Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore finally quit smoking back in 2001, when she was 26 thanks to a hypnotist Yefim G. Shubentsov, also known as “The Mad Russian”.
“It’s so cool,” she told USA Today. “Whatever it is that he does, it works.”
Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen DeGeneres once said on her show while interviewing Colin Farrell that she credits Allen Carr’s Easyway to helping her finally stop smoking.
Courteney Cox
Courteney Cox called on the same hypnotist Drew Barrymore used. “I went to this guy in Boston, Yefim Shubentsov. He’s known as the ‘Mad Russian,’ and he hypnotized me,” Cox told New You.
“I was like, ‘Really, that was it? Now I don’t want to smoke?’ But there’s something about the power of our minds,”.
Halsey
Halsey opened up on Twitter in 2019 sharing with fans that she had been a smoker for 10 years.
“I successfully quit nicotine a few weeks ago after smoking for TEN years. I gained a lot of weight and probably lost some friends forever bc I was being a NUT (lol) but I’m so happy I did it and I feel v goooood. just wanted to share.”
John Hamm
In an interview with People back in 2007, Mad Men star said he quit smoking at age 24 years old. “It’s glamorous on film, but it’s not glamorous waking up and smelling like an ashtray,” he recalled. What helped him the most, especially on set, was fake herbal cigarettes. “The taste is a cross between lawn clippings, mint and pot,” he said. If it works, it works!
Katherine Heigl
Since telling Parade in 2010 she was using electronic cigarettes to help her quit smoking, actress Katherine Heigl has managed to get by without the real deal. But she admits it has been hard, saying, “Smoking sucks!”
“The one thing I would say to my kid is, ‘It’s not just that it’s bad for you. Do you want to spend the rest of your life fighting a stupid addiction to a stupid thing that doesn’t even really give you a good buzz?'” Heigl says.
Kim Zolciak
In an interview with The Cut, Kim Zolciak reveals she quit smoking a few years ago with the help of Allen Carr’s book Easy Way to Stop Smoking. “I definitely loved cigarettes, which was so odd because I love white teeth and pretty skin,” she said. “I have a very addictive personality, and for someone like myself who has smoked since I was 15, I promise you, it changed my life.”
And Zolciak isn’t the only celeb to swear by this book. “Ellen DeGeneres quit smoking because of it,” she said. “Fourteen million people quit smoking because of it. My husband did chewing tobacco and he quit that cold turkey. I didn’t even really want to quit — I had no reason to quit, I just smoked a whole pack of cigarettes reading the book, as it tells you to do, and I’ve never, ever smoked again. It’s bizarre. If I can do it, I know for a fact anybody can do it.”
Uma Thurman
In 2005, Pulp Fiction star Uma Thurman quit smoking for good. Calling it the “biggest struggle” of her life, per Glamour, Thurman nixed the habit by using nicotine gum.
Patricia Arquette
Patricia Arquette took to Twitter amid the coronavirus pandemic that she had quit smoking. “As COVID-19 attacks the lungs one of the most important things you can do is to quit smoking and vaping. I’m in day 3. Care to join?”
Mila Kunis
Kunis says she sucked down cigarettes to lose weight for her role in Black Swan, but she’s since quit and couldn’t be happier about the decision.
Kunis hasn’t revealed her exact method for quitting smoking, but two pregnancies in the span of just a couple years probably helped her lay off the habit.
Ben Affleck
Et tu, Ben Affleck? Yes, Matt Damon's other half was a smoker for over 20 years and was finally able to quit for good by using hypnosis. Affleck, who once smoked a pack a day and considered cigarettes part of his identity, decided to quit when he knew he was going to become a father for the first time. (Aww.)
But we're not totally sure he cut himself off 100 percent. Photos continue to pop up of Affleck not-so-covertly smoking. In fact, here's a whole gallery of Affleck smoking in 2016.
Aaron Eckhart
Once a chain smoker, Olympus Has Fallen actor Aaron Eckhart kicked the habit for good with the Kerry Gaynor Method, a unique program by renowned hypnotherapist Kerry Gaynor.
Jennifer Aniston
She certainly has a wholesome image these days, but it wasn't too long ago that Jennifer Aniston couldn't seem to say goodbye to cigarettes. She's nicotine-free now, though, which she credits largely to her devotion to yoga, according to the intro she wrote for Yogalosophy.
Barack Obama
If our nation's former leader can do it, then anyone can. Obama joked that he initially quit smoking because he was scared of his wife, though it seems that his family was his inspiration for improving his health. As the first lady told iVillage after the president had been smoke-free for almost one year, Obama wanted to set a good example for his girls because "they're at the age now where you can't hide." His presidential secret? After years of struggling to quit, Obama said Nicorette gum (and the fear of Michelle) helped.
Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt opened up in a 2022 GQ profile about how he quit smoking during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I don’t have that ability to do just one or two a day,” he said of the unhealthy habit. “It’s not in my makeup. I’m all in. And I’m going to drive into the ground. I’ve lost my privileges.”
The Oscar winner eventually cut out smoking all together.
Gwyneth Paltrow
She's built a reputation over the last decade for being the queen of clean living, but Goop mastermind Gwyneth Paltrow used to indulge in a two-pack-a-day cigarette habit. She broke it (for the most part) by going cold turkey.
She continues to get photographed smoking, though, and even told Harper's Bazaar in 2016 that she smokes once per week — "my one light American Spirit that I smoke once a week, on Saturday night."
Matt Damon
As you might’ve guessed, it was Damon who turned his buddy Ben on to anti-smoking hypnosis in the first place. Damon told Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, "I should have done it years ago. It's amazing. I didn’t even want cigarettes anymore."
Katie Cassidy
Wonder what Katie Cassidy's dad (former teen heartthrob David Cassidy) thought of his daughter smoking? Regardless, they're undoubtedly both happy the Arrow beauty quit, thanks to the Kerry Gaynor Method.
Cassidy's testimonial reads: "Kerry changed my point of view and the way I looked at cigarettes and how I thought about them… After I saw Kerry, cigarettes to me are disgusting. He saved my life."
Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron is stunning, smart and talented, and like so many others, she struggled for years to kick her bad habit of smoking. Luckily, the actor nixed her three-pack-a-day fix with the Kerry Gaynor Method.
Debra Messing
Debra Messing also used the Kerry Gaynor Method after she had a health scare.
"Even though I knew all about the dangers of smoking, I didn't really believe anything would happen to me, certainly not while in my 30s," Messing said in a press release for the American Cancer Society's 23rd annual Great American Smokeout in 1999. "Reality hit when I got a bad case of bronchitis and couldn't go to the studio for two weeks."
Ashton Kutcher
Ashton Kutcher was able to successfully quit smoking in 2006 using Allen Carr's Easy Way method. Reportedly, Kutcher was up to as many as 40 cigarettes a day before he was urged to read Carr’s book, The Easy Way to Stop Smoking, by his now ex-wife, Demi Moore. Kutcher said he quit the smokes but still enjoys the adult beverages.
"No. Like, this guy’s brilliant," Kutcher told Jay Leno on The Tonight Show. "And you get to the last page and he's like, 'All right, light your last one,' and you’re like, 'I don’t know if I want' — like, by the time you get to the end you're like, 'I don’t know if I want to light it, but, OK, if you say so, Allen.' And then you’re like — savor that last puff, you know. He's like, 'Take the last puff now.' And you're like, 'Take the last puff now.' That was it, and you put it out and then you're just done. And I haven't smoked since, like, for like a year and a half."
Catherine Zeta-Jones
After her husband Michael Douglas won his fight against throat cancer, Chicago star Catherine Zeta-Jones promised to kick the smoking habit, OK! reported. According to the outlet, Zeta-Jones used Smokestik electronic cigarettes to finally quit her addiction.
Paul Rudd
Not only was Paul Rudd able to quit smoking with the help of hypnotherapist Kerry Gaynor, but he has also helped others — like Parks & Rec's Rashida Jones and John Carter's Lynn Collins — by passing along Gaynor's info.