Thomas Whiteside
Noah Centineo has been sober for two years. While he’s been open about that in the past, he’s just shared more details about his decision to get sober.
In a cover interview for the Harper’s Bazaar men’s digital issue, the To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before star opened up about his sobriety, the future of his acting career and his role as real-life boyfriend to Instagram star Alexis Ren.
The 23-year-old actor has been sober since the day before his 21st birthday. Before then, he told the outlet he would frequently take Molly with his friends and try to “get to the bottom of some really deeply philosophical existential questions.”
As he shared of his past drug use, “There wasn’t really much I wouldn’t do. I never, ever injected anything, which is good. I smoked a lot of things. I was really upset, man. It was a really dark time in my life.”
That dark time started when he was around 17 years old and still trying to make it in the industry.
Now, he has certainly made it, but he’s still trying to figure out what fame and celebrity will mean for his life in the long-run.
“It’s more of a blessing than a curse,” he said of the sudden fame the Netflix rom-com gave him. (The outlet noted that before To All The Boys, he had less than 1 million Instagram followers. After the movie dropped, he jumped to 13 million. Now he has 17.6 million.)
As he continued, “But ask me again in five years when maybe I’m boxed into it and can’t get out. If that’s my path, I might have a different answer for you, but at this point in time, I’m trying to enjoy every single moment of it.”
Thomas Whiteside
A part of his life that’s newly in the public eye is his 10-month relationship with Ren. Centineo shared his first photo with his girlfriend on Instagram on Jan. 14. It was an adorable selfie of the two chilling in a pool, with the 22-year-old model licking her boyfriend’s cheek. In his caption, he dropped the L word.
“My dad says I look like I just finished a fight with @thenotoriousmma and lost,” he wrote. “I say, at least one of us in this photo is gorgeous. love you baby.” Cue the sobbing of his doting fans.
The star revealed in his interview that he and Ren met on a hike with mutual friends and discovered they had a lot in common. Now they’re in love and in a happily monogamous relationship.
As he shared, “She’s very good at monogamy. Actually, I love monogamy too.”
While his fans, no doubt, are heartbroken that their beloved heartthrob is no longer single, Centineo said he’s not too worried about controlling his public persona. To that end, he won’t stop himself from taking on projects that don’t fit the “adorable” image given to him by To All The Boys, Charlie’s Angels and Sierra Burgess Is A Loser.
“I don’t really care how people find me or why they like me,” he said. “If I can maybe help them in some way through them discovering me, that makes it worth it. I found that’s the only thing that really matters is how you make people feel.”
You can check out Centineo’s full interview in the Harper’s Bazaar men’s issue.
Watch E! News weekday mornings at 7 a.m.!