Paula Patton is opening up about overcoming alcoholism and leaving behind the “chaos” that once surrounded her life.
During a guest appearance on Atlanta’s Big Tigger Morning Show w/ Jazzy Mcbee on Monday, June 16, the actress reflected on the turning point that led to her sobriety. Around the three-minute mark of the interview, Patton shared that she’s been sober for seven years—a journey that began not long after her 2015 divorce from singer Robin Thicke.
“When you get sober—it’s so funny, I just had this epiphany that I had made a choice,” Patton explained. “Like, it was family, it was my life or chaos, to be honest with you.”
Patton and Thicke share a 14-year-old son, Julian Fuego, and she credited that life shift as a major reason for embracing sobriety and finding peace.
“I was about to go do a movie in London, and I was like, I can’t do this anymore,” Paula Patton shared. “I’m like, I want to be here to pack my son’s lunch and go on field trips.”
Just two days before leaving, Patton backed out of the film, admitting it came at a cost. “I said, ‘If I do this I’m going to stop drinking,’” she continued. “And so once that happened, you go down a path, and all of the masks that you wear—all the things that fill your ego—they drop away.”
She revealed that the decision caused her to lose friends and spend a lot of time alone, but it ultimately brought her closer to motherhood. “But then on the other side was this joy for being a mother. … I just had this childlike experience where I started to see everything through my kid’s eye.”
Her ex-husband, Robin Thicke, recently tied the knot with longtime partner April Love Geary. In a separate interview on The Morning Hustle, Patton spoke fondly of their past, saying her “love” for Thicke “never dies.” The two were married from 2005 to 2015 and share 14-year-old son Julian Fuego.
“Sometimes you just get to a place where you’re just not supposed to be together anymore, but we had a lot of great times together,” she said. “I met that man when I was 15 years old and we had a great love affair and we have an incredible son.”
She added, “In my healing, you have to get to the place where you can forgive and also forgive yourself—and then also only look for the love.”
