Once, me and the last (still standing) were getting breakfast in Soho. From the obscure to the ‘A list’ celebs. Just mates kicking back after work. I went outside for a cigarette and I was hit with paperazi. They were lining the streets, jumping from cars, even kneeled inthe gutterfor ‘up shots’. They shouted questions, flashed cameras. i couldnt see or hear. It was 5am after a previous 24 hours of working, being on stage, noise, pressure…and, yes, alcohol and drugs for some of us. That was every day life. Not because I was famous (I barely ever got bothered) but because of my mates, the people I worked and socialised with.

It wasn’t even me they wanted pictures of, but I couldn’t hack it. I was terrified if I kept preforming that this would become my life. I didn’t know who to turn to or trust or ask advice from. I felt preassure to never admit I was struggling / complain, but I was drowning already. I began using drugs to cope and became a heroin addict and eventually was suffering psychotic episodes and alsorts.

Before then I rolled my eyes at ‘moaning celebs’ too. Since then, I just feel bad for them. I left London and turned my back on it all. I hadn’t gone there to ‘get famous’, I’d naively never even considered all that side of ‘making a living doing out of what I was good at’. I was just shit at everything, but doing that…much as some people find their vocation in law or customer service.

One night I saw Amy Winehouse looking stunning, healthy, happy. I joked about how sober and healthy she looked next to me; at that time, I was thinner and on far more drugs and still I’d get told I was too big by ‘the industry’.

The next day I picked up the paper and a pap had got an unfortunate pic of her blinking or whatever and the headlines were about heroin and arguments and being too thin and partying too hard. She’d arrived last and left first and had about two quiet drinks while the rest of us gorged on booze and drugs and turned into gibbering messes.

Even the fans were scary. As fans I don’t think we realise how intimidating or scary we can be. I got approached for my autograph once and was fighting back the urge to cry. I was having a bad day and avoiding even bumping into friends when strangers began asking me for photographs and autographs and chatting about things that at that moment I just couldnt understand. Everything seemed bizare. I must’ve seemed so aloof and rude. I still think about it. In truth I was having a panic attack so bad ten minutes later I actually passed out entering the underground and fell the length of an esculator. If i’d been Amy WInehouse and done that it would have been a million times worse. And, no, it wasn’t drug related. That was before I started using drugs.

Blueskies has it right. One night we were out a person (the paps chase) ran out across the road to avoid them and got hit by a car, got up, apologised to the driver and carried on running. They were so desperate to get away before they were spotted.

These people make you insane and make it nearly impossible not to behave like an arse hole / lunatic.

u need to go look at the video of kate moss being swarmed by papparazzi at the LAX airport— this is her day to day life. there are SO MANY videos like this. in fact, the LAX video was used in a court case in LA as an example of how horrible the papparazzi can be. it is one thing to be on a closed set and have your picture taken. quite another to be surrounded when you’re just in your day to day life trying to be a normal person, like taking your daughter to school. —having to worry about you and your daughters’ safety— having to dodge and hide to protect yourself and your daughter.