Believe in People

Katie Price & Kerry Katona: Addiction, Cocaine & Media Scrutiny - Accountability, Stigma & Recovery

• ReNew • Season 1 • Episode 46

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Recorded live behind the scenes at Hull City Hall during their tour, Katie and Kerry sit down together for a raw, unfiltered conversation about cocaine use, recovery, motherhood, and the double standards women face in the public eye. 

They talk candidly about addiction, ADHD, bipolar diagnosis, self-medication, the role of fame, toxic circles, and how accountability changed everything. 

You’ll hear how their friendship became a lifeline, why owning your story beats gossip, and what helped them rebuild after the darkest moments.

In this episode:

  • How cocaine became a best friend and how they broke the cycle
  • Why disclosures still carry more stigma for women
  • Exploitation, tabloid culture, and the pressure to fail in public
  • Motherhood, relapse, and choosing different circles
  • Practical recovery tools: therapy letters, affirmations, exercise, boundaries

Katie Price
https://www.instagram.com/katieprice/

Kerry Katona
https://www.instagram.com/kerrykatona7

Click here to text our host, Matt, directly!

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Browse the full archive at 👉 www.believeinpeoplepodcast.com

This podcast is a toolkit for recovery & resilience. Whether you’re in recovery or seeking to understand addiction, there’s something here for everyone.

If you want to change your direction, grow as a person, and live life to its full potential, Change Grow Live is here to help you. We’re here for you if you need help with challenges including drugs or alcohol, trouble with housing, domestic abuse, or your mental and physical wellbeing. Change Grow Live services are free and confidential. Click the link below to refer yourself to your local service.

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📩 Podcast Contact: robbie@believeinpeoplepodcast.com
🎵 Music: “Jonathan Tortoise” by Christopher Tait (Belle Ghoul / Electric Six)

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SPEAKER_04:

This is a renewed original recording. Hello and welcome to Believe in People, a two-time Radio Academy Award nominated and British podcast award-winning series about all things addiction, recovery, and stigma. My name is Matthew Butler, and I'm your host, or as I like to say, your facilitator. Today on Believe in People, we're backstage at the Hull City Hall, quite literally. Katie Price and Kerry Katona are mid-tour for their evening with Katie Price and Kerry Katona show. And the scene behind the cairn is exactly what you'd expect. It's loud, unfiltered, a bit chaotic, and completely authentic. Somewhere between the mic checks, meet and greets, and a 10-week old puppy named Arlo trying to chew for our recording wires, and we managed to sit down and have one of the most raw and honest conversations that I've recorded yet. And my first time podcasting with two guests at once as well. Katie Price is a glamour model, best selling off her long-standing media personality. Kerry Faturner is a singer, television personality, and former member of Atomic King. They've been friends for more than 20 years, and two of the most recognizable women in the UK. Their lives are played out across front pages and television screens in a way very few people will ever experience. And as a result, their stories provide a real world case study of addiction, public scrutiny, relapse, mental health, motherhood, financial collapse, recovery, and resilience. All under the spotlight. In this conversation, we're not revisiting headlands, we're looking underneath them. We talk about the conditions that enable cocaine use, how fame and constant observation shape their behaviour. And how diagnosis, neurodiversity, and ADHD have influenced the way that they've coped, crashed, and ultimately recovered. We explore stigma, particularly the unique and often harsh judgment faced by women and mothers in addiction, and how that impacts help seeking, relapse, shame, and disclosure. This episode aims to support the understanding, challenge and assumptions about who becomes dependent and why, ensure that change and self-acceptance are possible, even under extreme scrutiny. I begin this conversation by asking how living so much of their lives in the public eye through addiction, pressure, scrutiny, and recovery has shaped a bond between them that the only two of them can truly understand.

SPEAKER_00:

What you'll find, which is rare, which we talk about on stage, we've known each other nearly 30 years. And apart from our childhood, everything we've done. I mean, everything is mirrored. Yeah. That's it, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

There's such similarities. That's it.

SPEAKER_00:

I think as well, with it because being in this industry, no, it's very few people who understand what you're going through when you have that amount of pressure on you from and that amount of focus on you from the press and from the public who actually understand what you're going through. Whereas we completely understand what you're doing. So you can bounce off each other as well, Katie. Yeah. And knowing whether it was the drugs or bankruptcies, how you're we weren't bad people, we were just lost people. Yeah, I get the thing. I was doing drugs with my mum from the age of 14. So I didn't know any different. And again, I've never known Katie to do drugs until she got introduced to it much later on in life, which was really shocking. I like about five years ago. And the thing is with me and Kate, is we've taken accountability for our mistakes and we're trying to learn from them. If you don't, I call them lessons, not mistakes. If you don't learn from them, then they're a mistake. And we were grown-ass women, you know. I should have known right from wrong, but when you're surrounded with people who are on the wrong platform that you need them to be, you kind of if you go in a room with six idiots, you'll become the seventh. If you go in a room with, you know, six millionaires, you can become the seventh. That's the saying. So and it's your circle of friends. And when you have such immense pressure from the not so much pressure, but they have taken a narrative of something that has gone on in our lives and ran with it without actually knowing the truth or the core reason of why we got to that stage, and then they like to push that a little bit more until they have that headline that you've been found dead, because that's what that's what it's been like, hasn't it? But fortunately, there's very few people in the industry where we're strong, we're sat here, we're so lucky we've we've actually got through it, and I wouldn't change any of it. People say, What would you change? None of it because it won't be who I am today.

SPEAKER_04:

Of course, yeah, I like that. What what part did would cocaine have played then at its very worst in your life?

SPEAKER_00:

My best friend.

SPEAKER_04:

Talk talk to me about that then, because that is something that you hear, but it's very rarely explored.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, for me, a lot of people do coke socially to go out, and for me, I was introduced to it because I don't really drink much anyway, but when I do, it was all or nothing, and it was New Year's Eve, and I was having a party at mine, and I got drunk really quick. And it used to sober you up, yeah. Yeah, so it sobered me up for midnight, and then I was like, Oh, I didn't really take any notice of the coke after, not like, oh, I want to do it again. But then towards the end of our relationship, Coke became my friend because I realised by doing Coke, it wasn't drinking. I did, I was like you, dry, dry doing it. Never been into drink, really.

SPEAKER_04:

So explain dry drug user to me then. So for someone who doesn't know.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, for me, it was like I would take it and it would block my mind into my own little world. I'd sit there, I didn't become loud, I was quiet in my own little world like this, and I'd write notes down, like notes down on things I wanted to do, and the problems on my brain, I'd be googling and googling answers and just mad, really. But it was the voice of you know, if you can take me, I'll take you to a like a different world, so you don't have to worry about anything else that was going on, to the point that while that was happening, all the problems that I was having got bigger, bigger, bigger. You don't start communicating, and on top of it, I was getting depression. It it was just disgusting if I'm wondering. It's disgusting. Can I tell you something? You know what my psychiatrist said to me when I got diagnosed with bipolar, and especially people with ADHD. Oh, but it's the same. He said, if we could prescribe cocaine, if you're right amongst people with bipolar and ADHD, we would. I did ask him for a prescription, but he said no. But that is that's a true story. That's what he said. He also said to me as well, and that that goes on to this morning when I did this morning interview. No one knew I had bipolar, and he said to me, Let people know you've had a drink problem, let them know you've had a drug uh drug problem. I didn't have a drink problem, but he said you can tell people those things. Don't let anyone know you've got mental health issues because people don't understand. Yeah, that's the thing. No one understood the mental health, and it came hand in with it hand in hand. And when I got diagnosed with ADHD, on when they asked you questions and stuff, I mean it's not just one questionnaire and like you diagnose, it's quite an intensive sort of thing that you go through, isn't it? And he said to me, Have you ever done Coke? And I'm like, Well, yeah, and he said, When you take it, what does it do to you? And it had reverse, I said it makes me go really quiet in it's like, Why would I do it? Because it it's not even me. And to people who were quiet when they do coke, it makes them more sociable, loud, and chatty, just done the complete opposite to me. For me to say to myself, so why did I even do it? It just knocked my personality, but it wasn't about that, it just took me away in the place away from everything that was going on. But you know, they're doing studies now of uh MDMA for PTSD as well. I mean, I've done ayahuasca, I've also done the microdosing, yeah. Um, and the I'm not saying that anyone should ever do this, but I I've I've looked in things relentlessly. I've gone down the whole spiritual route, and I don't know, I don't like the ayahuasca was just mental. That was I couldn't do that. She's told me about it.

SPEAKER_04:

Scares the talk me talk me through that then for someone who don't know what that is. What's that?

SPEAKER_00:

Ayahuasca is a medicine from the Amazon, and I had a shaman, and I've been I I do a lot. I've read like Thinking Our Rich, Power of Now, Secret. I've I've done so much work on myself. And then I was reading so many autobiographies, and I love I love Graeme Hancock, Bob Proctor, Lisa Nichols, Les Brown, you know, I'm I'm big into affirmations and meditation and all that kind of stuff. And the more people I was listening to, they all started it. Unless you're on that route, you start bumping into people who've done ayahuasca and never heard of it before, and then all of a sudden, randomly I'm meeting people. I thought, maybe this is something I should do. I read Will Smith's book, he did it 14 times, Prince Harry's done it. Like very, very successful people and people who've been in recovery, it's really good for people who recover, actually. Go down the route of ayahuasca, and it was something I I wanted to do, but my god, having to surrender yourself because not having done drugs in 17 years, this is more of a psychedelic spiritual journey, it's not a recreational thing. I mean, I was fucking pissing and shitting unicorns and musical notes and rainbows because you purge, so you're vomiting, but you're on the most intense journey I I've ever ever been on. But it that the six months after doing that, I had three emotional breakdowns because I actually went in it to heal from my childhood. I've never I never got upset. I'm not I never used emotional of my childhood, but then I um started come on in teasing coffee. Oh yes, thank you. This is our drug, this is our drug tea and coffee and biscuits. It's funny because when we do our show, yeah, people wouldn't do meet and greets before, oh I bet you know I'd love to be on a party. We've had people turn up with coke in their nose. Yes, so people are turning up for the wrong reasons.

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Because the narrative that had been portrayed about me and Kate, just from a time of period where we were lost, yeah, where we have been lost, they're turning up saying, Oh yeah, Kerry and Kate, oh well, go out, get on it, get off it.

SPEAKER_04:

Do you think being famous made it easier or harder to recognise that you had a problem with coconut?

SPEAKER_00:

No, I'm sorry, but my drug career started well before I was famous. I was 14, I was in a fossa home, and I was only last I supervised visits with my mum. And I snuck off to the pub to see my mum. And my mum was with her girlfriend at the time, and her and a girlfriend went in the toilet and was in there for ages. I was only 14, and I went in to see what she was up to. So, what's taking so long? She had a bag of white powder. I said, What's that? She went, here she had it sherbet and rubbed it on my gum. Oh wow, it was speed. I had a fucking great day. I did, I thought it was I thought it was brilliant, and and that was it for me. And then I used to save my pocket money up from my foster parents and go get a wrap of whisk with my mum. I thought it was normal. So it was so normalised for me, I didn't know any different. So I thought people who didn't do drugs were snobs. And then a boyfriend introduced me to Coke, then I started doing it with my mum. This is well before I was famous. So I never really did drugs in the celebrity shirt circles. Mine was always when I went back home to Warrington with a certain with my mum and friends. That was so for me, it was it wasn't the the showbiz. I never really went to showbiz parties or anything like that, really. It was always I was brought up like with you know, people on gyros and you know, we was in refuges and like really rough, rough upbringing. That it was that was my normal.

SPEAKER_02:

What about you?

SPEAKER_00:

For me, no, the showbiz, that didn't that wouldn't that's not why I did it. I've I was the late at starting it, as I said, and I was probably one of the only ones who never did do it. I was really shocked when I found out Kate. Yeah, all the parties you name it, I've been to them all, the Playboy Mansion parties, you know, been there, done it, the Oscars, never touched it then. It was only towards yeah, like probably yeah, five or six, was it five or six years ago? I don't know exactly when he introduced me to it at a time when everything was then already escalated in my brain. So I was very late, yeah, basically self-medicating. And yeah, but as soon as I got into it, I got out of it as quick as I could. For me, I think fame exposed it.

SPEAKER_04:

That's it, yeah, because you're under scrutiny a lot more, aren't you?

SPEAKER_00:

That's what it did for me. It it was like the worst kept secret that Kerry was doing drugs, and I I had a breakdown when my first husband left, and I went to Arizona and I was clean for like six weeks, and when I came home, my mum was like, I've ordered one of them. Because we used to have a traeries put in the oven to hide from people with a pipe. That was our thing, that's what we did. It's so weird when you say I've ordered one of them because it puts me back in that time where you sort of get excited that you know it's there. It's so weird. You used to need a poo, yeah. You used to need a journey poo before you scan it. It's so weird when you just went, Oh, I've got a packet. But you know what else I think about that makes me feel so sick. Like my toes are curling. My toes are curling, no, it's those fucking birds. Oh, the daylight, the daylight, and you're scratching like that in the packet, and then the downer hits you, and you just go and that, oh yeah. I mean, I I O D twice on Coke, and when my mum says she ordered one, Mark Croft walks in the door, he was my mum's drug dealer. So I married him because I thought I was gonna get a discount. I didn't, I lost all my money instead. If you don't laugh, you're gonna cry. It's the similar thing with me and Kerry again, because no one knew I did it. How I was exposed was my ex-boyfriend when my mum was dying, basically, and I couldn't go and see her, and I had all the other bankruptcy things all on my case, and he secretly videoed me crying. I was, and he's going, Gone, why aren't you seeing your mum? Why don't you tell it? It's because you're doing coke. Because he's doing it with you, yeah. He's doing it with you. See, what kind of man does that who so his intentions are completely different? My ex-husband did the same, he secretly videoed me taking coke in the bathroom and he sold me to the papers and he put it out on Instagram.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, okay, so it's it's just trying to make it make a quid off your base.

SPEAKER_00:

That's what I'm talking about. That's what mine they they sold mine, I think. Taking advantage of when your your weaknesses rather than going with me. Look, you clearly need help. But because they get men get so attached to the fame and the name that comes along with us that they just start using it, and it it it's almost like they try to manipulate you, beat you, bring you down so that you need them and keep you hooked on this stuff. Like, I know Mark Croft got someone to put that camera in because I needed him then and I lost everything. But it's best thing you ever did.

SPEAKER_04:

It's hard to put myself in that position where I could see myself doing that to somebody fucked up.

SPEAKER_00:

That's it. This is where the fame fucks people up. Not us. No. I've never changed. You've seen us, we've come in here, we're just dead normal. We've never fucking changed.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm surprised at how normal you are, to be honest. I don't know, I don't know what I was expecting, but like I say, just the normality of it.

SPEAKER_00:

I tried, I tried to use money and drugs to please people to show how down to earth I was. And for me, it was like being the only way I can describe it is like being in a tribe. And every time you try and bet yourself, that tribe, it's a reminder that they're going nowhere. So they try and pull you back down to keep you at their level because they know they can't get past, and that and that that's what my problem was. I was never addicted to drugs. Walking away from drugs was quite easy. It was walking away from my circle of my community, and that's when I moved 340 miles away. I moved down south. All my kids are southerners, I'm back up north now, but I'm a different person, a stronger person, and that that that's what it was for me. Giving up cigarettes was really fucking nice, she says. And this is the thing, so mine's the same as Kerry's. I had to I moved out of the house, got rid of all the people around me who I knew weren't good or helping me or understanding what I was going through, even though they knew I was going through it because they were all doing it as well. And anyone out there, you've got to help yourself and you've got to look at your situation. And soon as I got rid of the people, moved out, started up new. We've realised we don't need any friends, we've got each other, we've got our family, our kids, that's all you need. Don't need new people. And it was easy for me to get off it because they were the people who were older in it, and unfortunately, as well, and this is this is we talk about this on the tour and on stage. Unfortunately, we live in a society where people thrive of watching come off the people fall off their pedal stool, they thrive on gossip and bad news, and that someone who's successful has fallen. I I I understand it, I get it. I mean, I've picked a magazine up before with me and Kate on the cover, read a two-page spread about Kate, and oh no, she's not. Oh my god. And I'm pulled in and I start thinking about myself, thinking, my life's not that bad. Turn the page in the same magazine, two page spread about myself, and go, that's all the fucking bullshit. And I realize that gossip is a stress release, and we all like a bit of a gossip, but unfortunately, when you're the person you're gossiping about constantly, it gets to a point that we self-medicated, we've tried to take our own lives because we're then portrayed as the villains, we're trash, we're slags, we're this, we're bad mothers. We were doing wrong things, but we we wasn't a bad, we just really lost and needed help. Yeah, but nobody wanted to help because we're too enthrived in the gossip and the downfall of that person, that that's and that's what society is, and that's why we're doing this too. It's about training each of us' crown and helping lift each other.

SPEAKER_04:

I think there's a lot of things there, and and I mean I've always heard the saying that people like to see you doing well but not doing better than them, and I think that links to what you're saying about them them social circles, and then with that, yeah. I mean, that resonates with me too. But I think really, in terms of like having your entire life documented in the way that it is done.

SPEAKER_00:

But that's the thing. We have been so happy, and we still love documenting our life. That's not the problem. The problem isn't us documenting our life. We love doing reality shows, we love entertaining, yeah, but it's the people we've surrounded ourselves with and what they've caused to us that's caused the mental health problems. And years ago, no one knew what mental health was. If they did, you weren't allowed to talk about it, maybe I wouldn't have gone the paths that I did. But then you're attracted to the way we want to talk about it to help others to say, look, it's not about how many times you fall, it's about how many times you get back up, and don't be embarrassed by your fall. You're a fucking human being at the end of the day, and if we can do it so publicly, I truly believe we have this platform for a reason, and that is to tell our story, hoping it helps somebody because there's no one out there for me for us to look up to and go, I relate to that, I relate to that. You know, men are very glorified, but women we're torn down, and especially back in the fucking day.

SPEAKER_04:

Kitty, in your book, you wrote a little poem called Dear Coca Cain. And I've got it here. Would you read it for me?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So when I was in therapy, I'm just gonna pass the dog to Heidi. Good boy. So this letter is when you're in therapy, when I was in the priory, you had to write a letter to whatever was your appreciations and your confrontations. So this was mine, and in my latest book, I wanted everyone to see the letter that I wrote to cocaine. So I wrote, dear cocaine, you're not my friend. You got hold of me at the wrong time. How dare you? You are affecting me, and you are affecting my family. You aren't letting me be the mum I want to be. I can't be the mum I want to be because of you. Fuck you. You will never be in my life again. I hate you, Kate. And it's weird how I say about my children. Obviously, it affected everything in my life, but to me, it's my kids and my family and my everything, so that's why I wrote it against them about my family and kids. But it's weird, although my kids wouldn't have noticed what I was going through, they didn't know, but I knew, and I knew how it was affecting me. So I think it's good for anyone, even if you're not in therapy, think about what the drug or the addiction is you're doing, and just write a letter. Because I think once you've written a letter and it comes out of your brain and you've written it down, it sort of you know releases it.

SPEAKER_04:

Because I think that I think there's a double layer then. You you just you talk about like like motherhood there, and I think you know, for women in recovery, I think there's this they're getting much harder to say it's a d it's a double layer of scrutiny because well it is.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, let me just give you a quick example. Let's and I love Ant and Deck, I truly do. Really good friends of mine, and I applaud Aunt McPartland's sobriety. I truly, truly do. But looking me on this morning, right? Pure bipolar medication, I have no reason to fucking lie whatsoever. No reason to lie that and I've shouldn't shit up my nose. But when Aunt McPartland went through his trouble time crashing his car off his nose, whatever, eight months later, he's winning awards. No one ever speaks of it again. But when you're a woman, especially when you're a mother, people don't let it go. It's almost glorified with men. I was watching Piers Piers Piers Morgan's life stories, and Roger Stuart was on it because I adore Rod Stuart, and he was sat there and he's talking about orgies and Pearsy's laughing. He's talking about the drugs and Pierce's laughing. If Kate or myself sat on there talking about the same things, he he would be disgusted. So it's accepted for men and almost glorified, and you kind of put in like this shat the lad, oh yeah, you're a fuck boy kind of thing, or you've got look at the Boris Johnson, seven kids, there's five different women, his ass kid was born, the nation applauded. We have five children to three different men and we're slags. Away we go again. We wasn't like a nine-year-old kid going, and when I grow up, I want to get married three times. I want five children to three different men. That wasn't our dream. We got the wrong partners, but we got the right kids. But we're made to be the ones in the wrong. But none of these fucking men have set up and helped me bring them up.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You see what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, absolutely. How do you how do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_00:

Like we're just judged and judged wrongly and bringing up the ant thing, you'll never you never read about it again. But I guarantee any headline or any story about me and Kerry, they will always bring into it, oh, bankrupt, they had addiction trouble, this, that it's like we've made a full circle. People don't realise number one how hard it is to make the change. It is very hard to pick yourself up and want to change and pull it into process. The hardest thing ever, and it's hard to keep going, it's so easy to fall back, but you've got to think of what comes out of it, being positive, keep going. It opens up a new world, and you've just got to keep going. You just don't. People don't like to let go of your past, especially when you're a woman. It's almost it's been a given to trash the likes of Katie and myself.

SPEAKER_04:

That that's it. It it's almost it's I I was thinking I was thinking about this because I mean my first introduction to you both was when you did the the jungle for the first time. I mean, what year was that?

SPEAKER_00:

21 years ago.

SPEAKER_04:

That's uh what what year would that have been then?

SPEAKER_00:

2004.

SPEAKER_04:

2004. So yeah, I'd have only been like 1113, I think, roughly then. You've been in the that's it, and and I think since then you've always been in Tableau newspapers, but I think with YouTube, for some reason, it's almost felt like it was fair game to take shots in it.

SPEAKER_00:

It is, it is fair game.

SPEAKER_04:

So what why do you think why do you think that is for YouTube's?

SPEAKER_00:

I think there's a new generation of journalism now. Back then in the day, you had the news at world, like when you're in a girl band, there's always one member of that girl band that the press focus on, especially if you've got big tits in your gobber. You know what I mean? But because I had so many skeletons in my closet, my mum was a lesbian, I was in foster home, I was in refuges, my mum always used to self-arm. My first memory was watching a sled race, I became a page three model, I did the glamour modelling thing before Atomic Kitting. They hone in on it, and then when you start dating a boy band member from Westlife, who's the biggest boy band of the world at the time, they focus in on that and they kind of put you up on a pedal stool. And then when Brian cheated, you know, it it it I've never experienced anything like it. And then obviously, we did the jungle together, and I I do these shows as Kate does as well for the memories, for the adventures, because that's all we've got to set with us at the end of it, it's all we have, and I'm this kid from Fossil going thinking fucking hell, this is great, you know what I mean? Just to create a memory that's a wholesome, nice adventure. But when they put you up there, as soon as something happens, it is you're right, it's almost fair game. But we're coming, we're the kind of celebrity from an era where it was accepted for the paparazzi to put the camera under your skirt and put that in the newsletter world. It was accepted. We were villainised, we we were the stigma that went along with women was so grotesque. But you get the likes of Dean Gaffney and things like that back in the day, everyone selling stories, it was acceptable. But if everyone did it on us, we're the worst things in the world. But the narrative is changing. I believe the narrative is changing now for women. No, and that we both started off as pastry models as well. They haven't got that anymore. Not that that ever bothered us. Yeah, but we do it again, I'll do it again. Well, I'll fucking do on my Onifants discount on your way, mates rates and all that shite. But yeah, for me, uh and for Kate, it's it was an era that unfortunately there's still old school journalism out there. Like recently, like I said before, this is about empowering each other, empowering men as well, but also empowering women. And unfortunately, these have been sell-out shows, they've been amazing. And one journalist wrote a story who never even attended the show, saying people were falling asleep with our fucking gobs. Hard chance, mate. Seriously, and saying it was as dull as dishwater. This person is from back in the day who's also friends with a certain management group and a certain ex-pop star. It's a smear campaign. And I think to myself, and I went on a rant on Instagram, I thought, no wonder so many people find it so fucking difficult to step forward and talk about their mental health and their issues and ask for help. When you have a national newspaper pissing all over two women who've hit rock bottom who are trying to help others, why is nobody giving credit where credit's due? And it's later.

SPEAKER_04:

To look at what you've overcome, it's like you use Aunt McPartland as an example.

SPEAKER_00:

It was a given to sell the story on the card. But now, because you've got social media podcasts, that we've got a voice, we now can use that to help turn other people's lives around to go, you know what? We have been through it, we've been through the relationships, we've taken the drugs, we've been bankrupt. I mean, there's nothing more anyone can actually say about us. We've been exposed in the world. And we're not medially trained, we've never been medially trained, and I think that's one of the reasons why we're so relate to us. Even in the TV industry, there is a false expectation of what the public should be living up to, and they're all full of shit. My life's perfect, my life's this, there's no drama in my life, bullshit. There's drama in our lives, and what's accountable to say, and we'll be open and honest about it. It was never I would for me, it was like with all the people who I grew up with, like all my mum's mates and all that kind of, and with my mum. It was never in the showbiz circles ever. And the people who I was doing it, I was going out with, there were people who lived next door to me, they were friends I was with, and no one ever says anything about them, like because it's your next this is what I mean. It's because it's and they were all involved in it as well, and I'm the one who suffered.

SPEAKER_04:

I think I think with that as well, like everything that you you've gone through. And I think look at I mean, again, I I I don't know you two. I know what I know what the press shows me of you two, but it looks like you've had some really incredible highs, like what you've got now, and then obviously all your you know lows are really really put bare as well. But you're sitting here today, you've been for what you've been through, you're still still. You're still talking about it. What do you think that says about the power of ownership of your own story? About the power of recovery and about you two as people as well.

SPEAKER_00:

I deserved a line. I deserved a line. That for me, it's like being in a rocking chair going back. I'm going so you have to wake up one day and go, right, what do I want to do? What kind of person do I want to be? I woke up this morning. That's the first thing I smile about. I woke up. Accept it. Yeah. Accept it, move on. There's no point being what's in the past is in the past. It's surrendering yourself to it. Accept it, like own your own your shit and get on with it. We could sit here and blame, well, this happened, that happened. Yeah, it did, and why we got into situations, but it is what it is. And I can't tell anyone anymore how powerful it feels to get through it all, own it, and help yourself and help others. It's the best feeling in where it's not about money, it's nothing about that. It's pay it forward.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. Pay it for. How just a real quick on that accountability. When did the penny drop for you about taking accountability? Because it sounds so simple, doesn't it? Just take ownership of your actions, but it isn't as easy as that.

SPEAKER_00:

I I actually went to a boot camp for Close Magazine. Look how much weight I lost. I was married to Mark Croft at the time, and it's the first time I was away from him. And the first week I really struggled, I actually turned up off my head on coke. And I remember sitting there with my mum as my driver pulled up and I was having a line on our tray that we had. And I sat there, I don't like something just I thought I just wanted to get off. I didn't want the like the thing is you're chasing that buzz. There's no buzz like that first line you used to have. There just isn't, and you chase and it just got to a point where I know it makes me feel sick. It got to a point where I was just like, I look, I said, I don't want this life anymore. I'm done. And I got in the car, I got to the boot camp, it was nothing to do, it was like weight lossing. And the first week I really struggled, and the second week it was like it was like putting glasses on and being able to see like the trees were greener. So it's just like coming out at home and the fob. I'm thinking, I feel fucking really great. I didn't need anything to give me a hike because I was getting that from exercising, the fresh air, and going on walks and being surrounded by people. Everyone went there for like weight loss, but it turned out to be a much deeper meaning. By the third day, we're also drinking too much. I thought, fucking hell, I'm not here on my own. It wasn't a rehab that changed. I loved going to rehab because it was a fucking break. I'll go back there tomorrow, just get away from bastard kids. You know what I mean? Honestly, that that's why it's got proud of me sometimes just to get away from all the shit. And for me, it turned out to be so much more than that. And I eventually end up going back home to Mark, and I just something just changed. It was like I could bre just that you remember, you know, in the winds, that crisp, fresh air that you get.

SPEAKER_04:

Winter's morning, sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and for me, I was like, I didn't want to go back home because I knew the saying goes, You lie down with dirty dogs, you're gonna get fleas, and I knew that's what's gonna happen. And I started speaking to Nick and Eva Speakman, and I started naturally getting into podcasts and affirmations and gratitude books, and it's a cliche, and people go, No, no, I get it though. I've got this one into it, I've got Lewis into it, and as much as everyone took the piss out of me, that that is I don't listen to music if I'm getting ready. Affirmations, yeah, yeah. I don't care what anyone says. That's almost like my positivity because unfortunately, you you have like 60,000 thoughts a minute or a day, something like that, and those negative ones sometimes you can latch on that little hijacker in your head. So every day I get up, I do I'm so grateful for this brand new day of opportunity. I'm exactly where I'm meant to be. I open myself to the universe and I trust in the unfolding of my life, and I do that for 10 minutes a day.

SPEAKER_04:

I do get that about the negativity, because even like with these shows that you're doing, you could have you know 50 positive reviews, but if there's one that's negative, you focus on the negative, don't you?

SPEAKER_00:

We used to, but I don't do anything. That's good to hear that. I used to, I was so especially in the Coke days, yeah. I used to be obsessed, like going on Facebook because like we're old school, like just when that came out, and there'd be 20 reviews of that one one. That one negative comment is what would latch on. And now what journalists are doing, lazy fucking journalists. I had Harvey on stage and we're singing whole again, having a great time, he loved it. I got called a wrong in the national newspapers for singing whole again with Harvey because five comments of sick fucking individuals turned that song into something very sexual to me and I'm like. Oh fucking hell, Jesus. Comments on how nice it was do. The jump on it. He picked those five comments out of 250 of these five sick individuals, turn it into something it wasn't, and make that into a national headline. It's fucked.

SPEAKER_02:

I get that.

SPEAKER_00:

My turning point was I woke up from committing suicide because I was in denial to everyone that there was a problem. I'm like, I'm fine, I'm fine. Even though people knew I wasn't, I'm like, I'm fine, just leave me alone, I'm fine, I'll do this, I'll do that. Don't worry, yeah, I'll ring them back, I'll do that. When inside, I just really wanted to say, no, I don't want to be anymore, I want to kill myself, don't want to be here. So the fact of waking up from me committing suicide, I was like, fuck, it sort of shocked, scared me, and the thought of my kids ever getting that phone call. But when you're that ill and that mentally ill, and like you just don't want to be here anymore. And then that's when I went to the priory and just thought, do you know what? My kids need me, they're my world, and if it weren't for my kids, I would have tried to commit suicide again and kill myself, but I wouldn't do it, and I got help, and I've never, ever, ever looked back again.

SPEAKER_04:

There's the suicide one's always a really interesting one because, much like yourself, when you when you've made an attempt and you survive, when you talk to people, they always say, It's not that I wanted to kill myself, I just wanted to stop feeling the way that I was feeling. No, I didn't know that. And that's the penny fucking problem. No, I did it myself.

SPEAKER_00:

I LD'd twice on Coke, had a fit in front of my mother, doing it. First time it happened, been up for days. I used to be obsessed with the Xbox, me and my mum. I had a fit, don't even remember having the fit, got up and went and had another line straight away.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Twice. And the second time, I'll never forget, it was like it it was a near death. It was the most beautiful feeling. It's so wrong to say it. But I I was with Mark Croft in the bedroom, I started fitting, stopped breathing, but I had these three white glows, and but I when I came back around, I've never felt so much love. It was the most unbelievable feeling ever. But I still got up and went and did it because I wanted to go back to that feeling of being loved. I tried to do it to myself again. Whereas I did want to die, I didn't want to be. And that they say people who are always like, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna kill myself, they're normally the ones that don't the silent ones. I was the silent one. I felt ashamed, helpless, worthless, not good enough. Uh but my embarrassment. Embarrassed embarrassed, I was just not in a way.

SPEAKER_04:

And how long ago was that?

SPEAKER_00:

Four years ago or something. It wasn't that long ago.

SPEAKER_04:

How do you think looking back at where you were? Because again, that's a very short period of time. Like sitting here today and looking at it.

SPEAKER_00:

Because I I dealt with it straight away then. But it was many years of it all starting in my head, in the car. It's a process, isn't it? Process to the point it's like, no, I said I'm done now. Because I would go drive past trees and look at trees and think that'd be a good place to hang myself and things like that. Thought about doing it in my field, but no, I did it in the toilet, and yeah, never ever looked back again. It frightened, it frightened me like that. Now I'm at the other side, how selfish I would have been. How selfish, and all I had to do was just ask for help. And it's a brave two I couldn't do is asking because if I don't go to work, no one else will. And it was the fact of everyone going, ha ha, you're fucked. What you was on drugs, ah, you haven't got this, you're going through this, you're going through it's it's that. So I'm like, I knew I was done, just didn't want to be a wanted to be dead, fuck you all, I'm gone. And then I survived it.

SPEAKER_04:

Thank you, Kate, and thank you for for sharing that as well. I know we're pressed for time, so I'm just gonna wrap up. I want to do a quick fire ten questions. What I asked all my guests, what's your favourite word?

SPEAKER_00:

Cunt.

SPEAKER_04:

What's yours?

SPEAKER_00:

Fuck.

SPEAKER_04:

Least favourite word.

SPEAKER_00:

Cunt bastard.

SPEAKER_04:

Tell me something that excites you.

SPEAKER_00:

Family.

SPEAKER_04:

Something that doesn't excite you.

SPEAKER_00:

Negativity. Yeah, negativity.

SPEAKER_04:

No, we are, we like this. I can imagine. I can imagine. What sound or noise do you love?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh listening to crime soothes me.

SPEAKER_04:

What like crime documentaries and stuff? That's a lot of people say I think that's mental. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Something that like makes you feel comfortable. As soon as I don't sleep, crime's on. When I'm driving, I listen to crime. We lie in bed together, like on a day off, we don't even speak and we just watch crime shit.

SPEAKER_04:

Favourite swear word.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it has to be can't.

SPEAKER_04:

If he wasn't doing what you was doing, what profession would you like to attend?

SPEAKER_00:

Paramedic.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_00:

Social worker.

SPEAKER_04:

What profession would you not like to do? Worst job you can imagine doing.

SPEAKER_00:

The smell.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

And then lastly, if God exists, what would you like to hear him say when you arrive at the Pearlie Gates?

SPEAKER_00:

You can now protect your family and kids.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, that's very nice.

SPEAKER_00:

I just want to get through Bastard Gates. Just get me in and then I'll be sending for you.

SPEAKER_04:

No, thank you both for uh joining me on Believe in People. You've been much uh it's been much appreciated. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_04:

And if you've enjoyed this episode of the Believe in People podcast, we'd love for you to share it with others who might find it meaningful. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode, and leaving a review will help us reach more people and continue challenging stigma around addiction and recovery. For additional resources, insights, and updates, explore the links in this episode description. And to learn more about our mission and hear more incredible stories, you can visit us directly at believinpeoplepodcast.com.

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Matthew Butler

Host
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Robbie Lawson

Producer

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