Idris Elba Says He’s Been in Therapy for a Year Due to ‘Unhealthy Habits’
Idris Elba is opening up about his mental health.
The actor, 51, shared his journey to getting help through therapy during a Monday, October 2, appearance on the “Changes with Annie Macmanus” podcast.
“In my therapy, I’ve been thinking a lot about changing, almost to the point of neuropaths being changed and shifting,” Elba said. “It’s not because I don’t like myself or anything like that, it’s just I have some unhealthy habits that have just really formed. I work in an industry that I’m rewarded for those unhealthy habits.”
The Luther actor went on to elaborate that he was referencing habits like being “selfish” and a “workaholic.”
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“I’m an absolute workaholic and that isn’t great for life generally,” he said. “Nothing that’s too extreme is good. Everything needs balance. But I’m rewarded massively to be a workaholic, to someone that can go, ‘Oh, I’m not going to see my family for six months.’ I’m in there grinding and making new family and then leave them.”
Elba said he hopes to find other outlets besides work that relax him. But for now, that is not the case.
“The thing is, the things that make me relaxed end up being work,” he said. “This is my studio in my house and I just love being in here. I’ll open that laptop and be like, ‘I don’t know what to make today’ and today it will come out like this and one like that and I’m exhilarated by that.”
He continued: “I could have worked 10 days on a film, underwater sequences, holding my breath for six minutes and come back and sit in here and be [more relaxed] than sitting on the sofa watching TV with the family, which is bad, right? And this is the part where I’ve got to sort of normalize, if you like, what makes me relaxed. Can’t be all work.”
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As for Elba’s personal life, The Wire star tied the knot with Sabrina Elba (née Dhowre) in April 2019 in Morocco after they met at a party in Vancouver while he filmed The Mountain Between Us.
“It was love at first sight,” he said on The View in 2019. “I went out on my only day off, true story. It was a Sunday night. I went to this party, and there she was. The rest is history.”
Elba had previously walked down the aisle with Hanne “Kim” Norgaard in 1999, but the pair called it quits in 2003. They share daughter Isan Elba, 21. He’s also a father to son Winston, 9, whom he welcomed with ex-girlfriend Naiyana Garth.
Elba previously wed Sonya Nicole Hamlin in 2006, but the two split after less than a year together.
