LUCY HALE: “I Was Sabotaging My Life.”
Episode of On Purpose with Jay Shetty · September 21, 2026 · 1 h 24 min
Actress Lucy Hale tells Jay Shetty about self-sabotage, early fame, four years of sobriety, freezing her eggs and finding healthy love.
Summary
Lucy Hale joined Jay Shetty shortly after turning 37 and described feeling more grounded and authentic than at any earlier point in her life. She said much of her life had not matched conventional timelines and argued that comparison pulls people out of their own alignment; she described astrology and a belief in a personal "soul blueprint" as tools for self-understanding rather than prediction. Hale recalled childhood messages to "be good" and being labeled an emotional or difficult child, and said suppressing her natural intensity caused her later distress.
Hale discussed becoming famous around 2010 during the early years of Instagram and Twitter, and said the insecurities she developed on the first season of Pretty Little Liars came from societal and self-imposed pressure rather than producers. She criticized renewed public scrutiny of women's bodies and said people in the public eye become blank pages for others' projections. She described apologizing to people she had hurt and said self-forgiveness remains a daily choice.
On alcohol, Hale said she never had a normal drinking experience, described blackouts beginning around age 23, and recounted waking from a blackout in a Nashville hotel and going to rehab instead of performing at the Grand Ole Opry, cancelling a tour and effectively stepping away from music. After roughly twelve to thirteen years of relapses, she got sober on January 2, 2022, and at the time of recording had more than four and a half years of sobriety. Her advice to others was that awareness is already progress, that there is no single right method, and that relapse does not disqualify a recovery.
Hale also described freezing her eggs alone about a year earlier, calling it empowering and emotionally confronting, and said she met her current partner roughly a month later through a blind date arranged by friends. She characterized it as her first healthy partnership, contrasted it with earlier codependent relationships, and said she looks for signs and synchronicities in daily life. In the closing Final Five, she proposed laws requiring an hour of daily self-love, nightly non-shaming accountability, and swapping perspectives during arguments.
Chapters
- 0:01
Mercury retrograde and reconnecting
Hale and Shetty open by joking about rescheduling around Mercury retrograde and recall meeting six years earlier during a BetterHelp event.
- 3:00
Turning 37 and releasing timelines
Hale describes feeling grounded at 37, rejecting societal benchmarks, and asking what she actually wants versus what is expected.
- 6:39
Being the black sheep and suppressing intensity
Hale talks about always feeling different, believing in innate gifts and past lives, and the cost of shaming her own intensity.
- 9:58
Childhood, emotional safety and comparison
Hale recalls 1990s expectations for girls to be good and smiling, and argues comparison can be reframed as fuel.
- 16:27
Solitude, stillness and control
Hale describes a childhood tree as her defining memory, her need for solitude, her difficulty being still, and her reliance on control.
- 20:39
Early fame, media scrutiny and Pretty Little Liars
Hale discusses becoming famous around 2010, insecurities flaring during the show's first season, and criticism of women's bodies in media.
- 27:35
Shame, apology and self-forgiveness
Hale becomes emotional describing self-sabotage, apologizing to people she hurt, and treating self-forgiveness as a daily choice.
- 34:16
How drinking escalated and the road to rehab
Hale traces her drinking from teenage years through blackouts at 23, the Nashville hotel morning, rehab, and a cancelled tour.
- 41:13
Getting sober and advice for others
Hale describes getting sober on January 2, 2022, after years of relapse, and offers guidance for people seeking sobriety.
- 45:45
Dating patterns and growing in partnership
Hale reflects on past emotionally unavailable partners, fear of being alone, and her belief that growth is possible inside a relationship.
- 54:13
Rapid-fire questions and a possible reunion
Hale answers quick questions on validation, daily habits and red flags, and discusses how audiences now view her character's teacher storyline.
- 58:19
Motherhood and freezing her eggs
Hale explains her openness to motherhood and describes the egg freezing process she went through alone as empowering and emotionally revealing.
- 1:05:02
Meeting her partner and healthy love
Hale recounts the blind date a month after egg retrieval and contrasts her current stable relationship with earlier codependency.
- 1:12:36
Signs, synchronicity and the Final Five
Hale describes using signs and astrology as guidance before answering the closing questions, including three hypothetical laws.
Key points
What was said, by whom, with the exact words. Timestamps jump to the moment.
- Lucy Hale
Hale argues astrology cannot predict the future but provides a framework for self-understanding.
“I don't think astrology can predict your future, but I think it gives you a toolbox to be like, oh, that's why this is so hard for me to grapple with”
- Lucy Hale
Hale says she has questioned whether her desire for milestones like children comes from herself or from societal expectation.
“do I only want those things because society tells me I need to have those things or are those actual things that I want?”
- Lucy Hale
Hale says shaming and suppressing her natural intensity caused her lasting distress and that the real work is liking disowned parts of oneself.
“dulling that down and having shame about that caused me a lot of distress and pain in my life”
- Lucy Hale
Hale argues comparison, amplified by social media, pulls people out of their own path.
“comparison is going to snatch you right out of your own alignment”
- Lucy Hale
Hale recommends reframing envy as fuel rather than suppressing it.
“I go, oh, wow, look at what they did. I want to do that. That's amazing. Good for them. I don't want to take that from them, but I want to do something like that”
- Lucy Hale
Hale says she needs more solitude than most people and gets her insights alone, though she recognizes a fine line with isolation.
“I feel like I get my most insights or downloads or creativity in solitude and I feel like I need more solitude than most people”
- Lucy Hale
Hale says the pressure to look a certain way came from society and herself rather than from producers of her shows.
“there wasn't any pressure for me to from producers or anything to look a specific way. It was more a societal point of view, I think”
- Lucy Hale
Hale recounts that a comment about her face during the first season of Pretty Little Liars created an insecurity she still fixates on.
“something was pointed out about my face and i remember i had never noticed that about my face before To this day, I won't say what it is, but to this day, I still hyper focus on that”
- Lucy Hale
Hale argues public figures serve as blank pages onto which audiences project their own issues, and criticizes renewed scrutiny of women's bodies.
“people in the public eye are a blank page for people to project their own stuff onto”
Listen from 23:30 · Social media and adolescent mental health
- Lucy Hale
Hale describes seeking out and apologizing to people she hurt, saying chance encounters allowed her to make amends.
“I had a list of people I really wanted to apologize to. And I would just run into them. And I'd get to apologize to them”
- Lucy Hale
Hale says healing is not a finite task but ongoing unpacking, and that she can now see drinking as something that kept her going.
“you don't just do the work. I hate that saying, but like do the work, do the healing, and your life is just like shiny, sparkly, wonderful”
- Lucy Hale
Hale says she is over four and a half years sober and that her first year felt easy before repressed material surfaced.
“I'm in year, I'm like a little over four and a half years sober. And the first year was amazing. It was like easy breezy”
- Lucy Hale
Hale says she never had a normal drinking experience and was drawn to the feeling rather than the taste of alcohol.
“I never understood like why someone would drink a glass of wine for the taste of it. Like I hated the taste of it. I loved the feeling”
- Lucy Hale
Hale recounts waking from a blackout in a Nashville hotel and going to rehab instead of performing at the Grand Ole Opry, cancelling her tour.
“I went to rehab instead that morning I said I called my manager and I said I'm really scared I don't want to stop drinking but I know I have to stop drinking”
- Lucy Hale
Hale says her drinking and her music career coincided, which is why she has avoided returning to music.
“I had to cancel my tour because of drinking um and which is why I've never really approached music again”
- Lucy Hale
Hale advises that there is no single correct route to sobriety and that relapse is not disqualifying.
“I've tried every way and I've found my way”
- Lucy Hale
Hale says she was afraid of being alone in her twenties and derived self-worth from who wanted to date her.
“I was always with someone in my 20s. I was so afraid to be alone. And I found a lot of self-worth from who I was dating”
Linked moment · 49:18Skip to 49:18 using a listen link in the info box.
Lucy HaleHale disagrees with the idea that people must be whole before growing in partnership.
“It is definitely possible to grow within partnership. I think that's like a narrative where like you need to wait until and I'm like, I actually disagree”
- Lucy Hale
Hale says she froze her eggs about a year earlier while single and describes it as the most empowering thing she has done.
“I will say it was the most empowering thing in the world for me, especially doing it alone”
- Lucy Hale
Hale says the egg freezing process surfaced limiting beliefs about her age, marital status and lovability.
“I'm getting older. Why am I not married? Why don't I have kids? Am I lovable?”
- Lucy Hale
Hale says her current relationship, begun via a blind date at 36, is her first genuinely healthy partnership.
“I would say it's the first real healthy partnership I've ever been in. So talk about late bloomer. I met him when I was 36”
- Lucy Hale
Hale defends online dating, saying she met good people there and that a person's match will find them regardless of method.
“I think a lot of people want to shame the online dating world, but, like, your person's going to find you”
- Lucy Hale
Hale says she previously equated love with self-sacrifice and lost her identity in codependent relationships.
“I always thought love was self-sacrificing. I thought it was like going to the ends of the earth and, oh, they don't love me. Well, maybe I should try harder, be more”
- Lucy Hale
Hale says she uses personal signs to make decisions and declines to act when the sign does not appear.
“If I don't see it, I don't make the decision. And it really is as simple as that”
- Lucy Hale
Hale proposes a law requiring everyone to spend an hour a day, without distraction, focusing on loving themselves.
“for an hour a day, each person has to, without distraction, love themselves, like focus on what they love about themselves”
People
In the conversation
- Jay ShettyBritish author, podcast host and former monk who hosts On Purpose
- Lucy HaleAmerican actress known for Pretty Little Liars
Discussed
- Sasha PieterseActress and Pretty Little Liars co-star who publicly discussed health issues and public criticism
- Laura Lynne JacksonAuthor of Signs, referenced by Hale as a book about creating a language with the universe
- Hayden PanettiereActress whose On Purpose interview about addiction Hale said moved her
Topics
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From the publisher
Jay sits down with actress Lucy Hale, who at 37 says she feels more comfortable with herself than ever before. Lucy opens up about letting go of society’s timelines, navigating media scrutiny and body insecurity while growing up in the early days of social media, and her relationship with alcohol and path to sobriety. Lucy also shares her decision to freeze her eggs on her own terms, and how solitude, self-forgiveness, and personal growth have changed the way she approaches love, relationships, and herself. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Mazda crafts cars for people who do more than simply move. Visit Mazdausa.com to learn more. Consumer reports does not endorse products or services. Your future is waiting, and Walden is here to help you achieve it. https://WaldenU.edu JAY’S DAILY WISDOM DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX Join 900,000+ readers discovering how small daily shifts create big life change with my free newsletter. Subscribe here: https://news.jayshetty.me/subscribe Check out our Apple subscription to unlock bonus content of On Purpose! https://lnk.to/JayShettyPodcast What We Discuss: 00:00 Introduction 01:00 Reaching Her Grounded Era at 37 04:00 Releasing Societal Timelines & Comparison 06:40 Letting Go of The Pressure to Be Who Others Expected 13:56 Facing Oneself & Reframing Envy 16:28 The Need for Solitude From a Young Age 17:50 Reconnecting With Feminine Energy 20:40 Early Fame, Media Scrutiny & Perfectionism 24:20 Insecurities On Pretty Little Liars 27:35 Unpacking Past Coping Mechanisms & Learning to Forgive Yourself 32:14 The Ongoing Journey Of Sobriety 35:00 The Moment She Decided to go to Rehab 43:48 Advice For Anyone Seeking Sobriety 45:45 Dating Differently After Doing the Work 53:00 Waymo Cars & Delivery Robots 54:12 Rapid-Fire Game 56:44 Will There be a Pretty Little Liars Reunion? 58:46 Perspectives On Motherhood & Freezing Her Eggs 01:05:40 A Blind Date and The First Healthy Relationship 01:11:32 Looking for Signs in Everyday Life 01:16…
Summary, chapters and key points were generated from the episode transcript on September 27, 2026. Quotes are checked word for word against the transcript.