From rough patch to stable grounds

Melanie Griffith opens up on battling addiction, multiple marriages and cosmetic surgery

Melanie Griffith isn’t holding back when it comes to addressing complicated issues from her past.

The Roar actor recently revealed she tried her best to make sure her addiction struggles and time in rehab didn’t affect her children, reported People magazine.

“I was a totally functioning mom. I wasn’t like an out-of-it person,” Griffith said. “I didn’t do some things I probably should have done but, mostly, I was there for my kids. They had a sort of privileged gypsy life.”



Griffith first entered a rehabilitation programme to treat alcohol addiction in 1988, three years after her son, Alexander Bauer, was born. The stint led her to reconnect with former husband Don Johnson and they were remarried for five years before splitting again for good.

“Don was actually waiting for me when I got out of rehab,” Griffith says about Johnson, with whom she had daughter and Fifty Shades of Grey star Dakota Johnson. “We got back together; it was the most natural, perfect, loving thing. Then it just sort of wasn’t working. I think it’s hard when you are both in the public eye, unless one of you gives up work,” added Griffith.

The star went on to marry actor Antonio Banderas in 1996 before filing for divorce in 2014. “I think part of the reason my marriage to Antonio fell apart was because I was stuck; nobody else is to blame. It’s just that I personally got stuck and I won’t let that happen again, I want to enjoy life, I want to do whatever I want to do.”



As for her dating life now, Griffith admitted it is slow going. “I’m shy with men now, very reticent ... nobody has asked me on a date for almost two years,” she said.

The onetime Oscar nominee also spoke about the moment she decided to make a change after her cosmetic surgery work raised eyebrows. “No, I didn’t realise until people started saying, ‘Oh my god, what has she done?’” she stated. “I was so hurt I went to a different doctor and he started dissolving all of what I had initially gotten done. Hopefully, I look more normal now.”

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