Survivor Danniella feared drug relapse
Danniella Westbrook quit I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here because she feared it would damage her recovery from cocaine addiction, she revealed tonight.
The actress said she needed to attend one of the group counselling sessions which have been a central part of her life since she kicked the drug.
She also decided to leave because she could not bear to be apart from her husband Kevin any longer.
In her first interview since leaving the camp, Danniella explained her reasons for quitting to presenters Ant and Dec.
“I was living hour to hour in a world of hurt and thought, ‘I’ve got to go to an AA meeting and centre myself’. I had an AA book with me but couldn’t get centred.
“I need the support group I have got at home and if I don’t have my recovery I do not have a life,” she said.
Danniella had a lengthy spell in rehab and last year underwent surgery to repair her septum which had been destroyed by years of cocaine abuse.
Over the past week, ITV viewers have seen her appear on the verge of a breakdown, frequently in tears and threatening to leave.
The former EastEnders actress said she felt the strain of being apart from Kevin and her two children Kai, six, and 18-month-old Jodie B.
“I’m relieved to be out, to see my husband and phone my kids. I was hurting,” she said. “I am a strong person. It wasn’t about being in the jungle, it was about how I feel inside.
“I have never spent a night without Kevin. First I laid down and cried my eyes out... and it got worse.”
Danniella, 29, said she didn’t regret taking part in the programme but vowed: “I’ll never do another job to take me away from my family without contact.”
Quitting the show had taught her that she could make decisions on her own, she added.
“I made one of the biggest decisions I’ve had to make in years saying I’m going to go. Normally I would ring or text Kevin before making a big decision but I did it for myself and for that reason I know he’s going to be proud of me,” she said.
“I needed to find out more about me and stand on my own two feet and not lean on Kevin, and I have done that now. The things I went into the jungle to achieve, I’ve achieved. So it was time for me to pull myself together and get out.”
And she told how the experience of living in such harsh conditions had made her reassess her life and stop being so materialistic.
“I’ll love home even more when I get back. Now I know when I get home, if I’m bored, I don’t have to nip out to the shops and buy something. I’ve got stuff around me that makes me feel great, it’s not all about buying stuff,” she said.
Before her departure in the early hours of this morning, Danniella went to the Bush Telegraph to announce she was going to leave.
“I am a survivor and I have got clean and I have got sober but I needed to do that to live – I do not need to do this to live,” she said.
“At the end of the day, if the way I’m feeling is in jeopardy then surely the right decision to make is to go and change the way I feel.
“By staying here I’m sitting in a world of hurt and that’s not good for me, so I have to go.”
