'Bachelorette' star Hannah Brown talks about her relationship with alcohol: 'The only thing that was really giving me comfort was a glass of wine'
Hannah Brown addressed her relationship with alcohol during a recent TV appearance. As a guest on the Tamron Hall Show, the former Season 15 Bachelorette star shared she didn’t know how to handle how public her life had become after her stints on the Bachelor franchise and Dancing with the Stars and that she turned to alcohol for comfort.
"I'd never really been a drinker before and I was on TV like every Monday for an entire year and didn't know how to handle how my life had so publicly been displayed," the 27-year-old explained. "[I] have always lived with a smile on my face and you know, tried to pretend like everything was okay, but then when I was at home by myself, the only thing that was really giving me comfort was a glass of wine and then it became more than that and no excuses for mistakes that I've made but also, I was not in the best place of life and didn't know what resources I had to be able to get that help."
This is not the first time the reality star has been candid about struggles with alcohol. In her 2021 memoir, God Bless This Mess, Brown wrote that on May 16, 2020, she "started drinking at 11 a.m. — and never really stopped."
But by November 2021, Brown told Entertainment Tonight, "I'm actually, just for my mental health, not really drinking right now. I'll have a glass of wine or two, but [not more]... I thought I'd never have problems with [alcohol]. I just never had that personality."
Brown has openly discussed her struggles with depression and anxiety on social media. In 2021, after watching Oprah and Prince Harry’s mental health docuseries The Me You Can't See, Brown shared via her Instagram Story "it's not easy living with depression and anxiety or any mental illness, but conversations like these are so impactful to help us all feel not so alone on our mental health journey.”
As a speaker on Kenneth Cole's Mental Health Coalition 1-2-1 Instagram TV Series, the Alabama beauty queen shared that she had to learn about boundaries after her multiple appearances on reality TV.
"This past year I really had to go on a journey of unpacking [her past years of being on TV]," she said. "I've had to learn what boundaries are. What serves me, what doesn't serve me. What values are important to me and what is the type of love that I think I deserve and that I am receiving. How to have those things align. And how to break down limiting beliefs that I've had about myself for so long. Or the thousands of people who have opinions about me, say about me. Really asking myself if that's true or not, or if I'm playing into that role. That's something that I've been really in the process of understanding of who I am."
