Kit Harington 'Happy' He Went to Rehab for 'Mental Health Difficulties'

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Kit Harington wanted to 'concentrate' on himself after wrapping 'Game of Thrones' — read moreLabel: Mental Health

Sharing his truth. Kit Harington opened up about why he decided to go to rehab in 2019 and he has no regrets.

“I went through some mental health difficulties after [Game of] Thrones — and during the end of Thrones, to be honest — and I think it was directly to do with the nature of the show and what I’ve been doing for years,” the Eternals star, 34, said during a Friday, July 30, interview on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show.

Kit Harington 'Happy' He Went to Rehab for 'Mental Health Difficulties' — Kit Harington. KCS Presse/MEGA

In May 2019, the British actor checked into a Connecticut rehab facility for stress and alcohol abuse ahead of the show’s series finale. “Kit has decided to utilize this break in his schedule as an opportunity to spend some time at a wellness retreat to work on some personal issues,” his representative told Us Weekly at the time.

Harington played Jon Snow, one of the HBO series’ main characters, since the show premiered in 2011. Throughout Game of Thrones‘ run, he was open about how the grueling shoots affected the actors.

“The last season of Thrones seemed to be designed to break us. Everyone was broken at the end,” he told GQ Australia in January 2019. “I don’t know if we were crying because we were sad it was ending or if we were crying because it was so f—king tiring. We were sleep deprived.”

The Pompeii actor echoed that sentiment on Friday, saying that he needed some rest after eight years of playing Jon. “I think I took a sort of break after Thrones where I said, ‘I don’t want to work for a year. I want to really kind of concentrate on myself,’” he explained. “I’m really happy I did that.”

Harington wed his former Game of Thrones costar Rose Leslie in June 2018. The couple welcomed their first child, a baby boy, in February.

“Everyone goes, ‘Look, it’s big, what you’re about to go through is big,'” the Modern Love star told Access Hollywood of fatherhood on Friday. “You have no way of knowing that until it happens. Then, what surprises you is you go, ‘Oh, this goes on forever.’ Like, you don’t get a break from it.”

Despite the steep learning curve that comes with parenthood, Harington is thankful the COVID-19 pandemic allowed him extra time to focus on his family.

“What we were gifted with this was forced time together,” he told SiriusXM. “And because of that, we ended up having a baby. That’s the major thing that came out of the pandemic for me, was becoming a father. I had a quite profound and amazing experience during this last year and a half.”