Anne Hathaway is celebrating an accomplishment she believes is far more important than any birthday.
“There are so many other things I identify as milestones,” Hathaway, 41, said in an interview with the New York Times published Saturday, April 27. “I don’t normally talk about it, but I am over five years sober. That feels like a milestone to me. 40 feels like a gift.”
When asked about turning 40 in 2022, The Idea of You actress said it wasn’t as big of a deal as some may think.
“The fact of the matter is I hesitate at calling things ‘middle age’ simply because I can be a semantic stickler and I could get hit by a car later today,” she explained. “We don’t know if this is middle age. We don’t know anything.”
What she does know is that not drinking has had a positive impact on her life. During an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2019, Hathaway first revealed that she cut out alcohol.
“I quit drinking back in October, for 18 years,” Hathaway — who shares sons Jonathan, 8, and Jack, 4, with husband Adam Shulman — told Ellen DeGeneres. “I’m gonna stop drinking while my son’s living in my house. I don’t totally love the way I [drink] and he’s getting to an age where he really does need me all the time in the mornings.”
She later recalled a day when she was dropping her son off at school. While she wasn’t driving, Hathaway said, “I was hungover and that was enough for me. I didn’t love that one.”
Just last month, Hathaway provided another glimpse into her decision to stop drinking. The Oscar winner said it was best for her to cut it out completely.
“I knew deep down it wasn’t for me and it just felt so extreme to have to say, ‘But none?’ But none,” Hathaway explained to Vanity Fair in March. “If you’re allergic to something or have an anaphylactic reaction to something, you don’t argue with it. So I stopped arguing with it.”
While she doesn’t judge anyone who chooses to enjoy alcohol responsibly, Hathaway simply said she made a decision that was best for her.
“It’s a path everybody has to walk for themselves,” she continued. “My personal experience with it is that everything is better. For me, it was wallowing fuel. And I don’t like to wallow. The thing that I have faith in is that everybody else is going to have one or two drinks, and by the time everybody gets to two drinks, you’ll feel like you’ve had two drinks—but without the hangover.”
