Naomi Campbell has candidly spoken out about her struggle with drug addiction for new Apple TV+ docuseries, The Supermodels.
On the show, Campbell, alongside fellow supermodel Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista and Cindy Crawford, delved into the era that made them fashion icons.
In the fourth episode, Campbell, 53, shared her battle with alcohol and drugs, which she explained was triggered by the death of her friend Gianni Versace in 1997.
Mr Versace was fatally shot by obsessed fan Andrew Cunanan while outside his Miami Beach mansion, Casa Casuarina.
Campbell recalled the moment she received the phone call about her friend’s murder while she was in Rome, en route to meet the slain designer’s sister, Donatella.
She described the overwhelming sensation she felt, saying: “Everything starts ringing in your ears. It’s awful. I can’t get to the hotel because there are thousands of people outside, so I have to climb up the laundry shaft to get into the hotel.”
To cope with her grief, Naomi said she turned to alcohol and drugs, particularly cocaine.
“Addiction is such a bulls**t thing. You think it’s going to heal that wound, but it doesn’t," she said on the video.
After collapsing during a photoshoot in 1999, Campbell checked into rehab for the first time: “I have always owned up to [my mistakes], and I chose to go to rehab, and it was the best and only thing I could have done for myself at that time.”
She also began attending Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings.
Campbell also addressed her past assault convictions, including assaulting her personal assistant with a mobile phone in September 1998. She pleaded guilty to that incident in Toronto in February 2000.
Over the years, multiple former employees and associates came forward with allegations of abuse. She acknowledged that addiction had fueled her anger during that period. “Addiction can cause such huge fear and anxiety, so I got really angry,” she said.
While her latest interview is her most candid, back in a 2010 appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Campbell openly discussed her cocaine use, admitting that she first started using the drug at the age of 24, to cope with the demands of her career.
The model, who recently came under fire for collaborating with fast fashion brand PrettyLittleThing, described that period as destructive, saying: “It was a destroyer. I mean, it’s really a devil’s drug."
