Game of Thrones star Kit Harington has checked himself into a US wellness retreat, reportedly to deal with stress and alcohol issues.
According to Page Six, Kit – who played Jon Snow on the hit series for eight years – has been undergoing treatment at luxury Connecticut health retreat Privé-Swiss for nearly a month. He reportedly arrived weeks before the show’s finale aired on May 19th.
They report the actor has been undergoing psychological coaching, practicing mindful meditation and cognitive behavioral therapy to combat stress and deal with negative emotions. Treatment doesn’t come cheap at over $120,000 USD a month ($185,000 NZD).
A representative for the actor confirmed the news, telling Page Six, “Kit has decided to utilise this break in his schedule as an opportunity to spend some time at a wellness retreat to work on some personal issues.”
The emotional final season of Game of Thrones took its toll on Kit.
An insider told Page Six, “The end of GoT really hit Kit hard… He realised, ‘This is it — this is the end’, it was something they had all worked so hard on for so many years. He had a moment of, what next?
“He’s in the clinic predominantly for stress and exhaustion and also alcohol. His wife Rose is being extremely supportive.”
Kit and Rose famously met on the set of Game of Thrones – Rose played Wildling, Ygritte – and they married in June last year.
The 32-year-old has spoken openly about struggling to come to terms with the end of the show. He recently told Esquire that he ‘broke down’ filming Jon Snow’s final scenes.
“The final day of shooting, I felt fine… I felt fine… I felt fine…,” he said. “Then I went to do my last shots and started hyperventilating a bit. Then they called, “Wrap!” And I just… broke down. It was this onslaught of relief and grief about not being able to do this again.”
Kit and Rose married in June last year. The wedding was attended by many of their Game of Thrones cast members. Photo: Getty
This isn’t the first time Kit has struggled with issues the show – and fame – has brought up. He told Variety that he sought psychological help to deal with the impact of being in the spotlight and under such scrutiny at a young age.
“It wasn’t a very good time in my life,” he said. “I felt I had to feel that I was the most fortunate person in the world when actually, I felt very vulnerable. I had a shaky time in my life around there — like I think a lot of people do in their 20s.”
“My darkest period was when the show seemed to become so much about Jon when he died and came back,” he explained. “I really didn’t like the focus of the whole show coming onto Jon.
“When you become the cliffhanger of a TV show, and a TV show probably at the height of its power, the focus on you is f—–g terrifying.
“That was a time when I started therapy and started talking to people,” he said, “I had felt very unsafe, and I wasn’t talking to anyone.”
Kit’s co-star Maisie Williams, who plays Arya Stark, has also spoken about the toll the show – and the accompanying fame – took on her mental health.
“Honestly, I want a normal life,” the 22-year-old star admitted to Fearne Cotton on a podcast earlier this month. “I don’t want any of this crazy, crazy world because it’s not worth it.”
“I still lie in bed at, like, 11 o’clock at night telling myself all the things I hate about myself,” she revealed.
“In my own personal life, I think I just went through a lot of real revelations where I was like, ‘I’m not very happy doing this and pretending everything is fine.
“I think there was a period of time where I was very sad, and then I came out of that, and now it’s just really terrifying that you’re ever going to slip back into it.
“That’s still something that I’m really working on, because I think that’s really hard. It’s really hard to feel sad and not feel completely defeated by it.”
Despite many fans being upset with how the final season turned out – and over a million people signing a petition to have it remade, the penultimate episode and the final were its most watched episodes to date.
