Her shocking interview with Phillip Schofield and Fern Britton on This Morning in 2008 exposed just how far Kerry Katona had fallen.

Now fit and healthy – and drug free – the reality star has made a triumphant return to the ITV sofa.

Kerry says it was that interview, in which her slurred speech and erratic behaviour shocked viewers, that spurred her to take action and make a drastic lifestyle change

Kerry said: ‘That wasn’t me back then. I was in a very dark dark place, I was on a lot of heavy medication, I was in a very unhappy marriage, and I was taking drugs.’

She said that her behaviour during the 2008 interview was down to her Bipolar medication: ‘I was on 350mg of chlorpromazine, which I took at quarter to twelve the night before, and every morning my speech would be very slur, and it’d wear off in the afternoon.’

Asked by Phillip Schofield whether she had watched the old interview in full, she said: ‘No. I’m too embarrassed and ashamed. It’s mortifying.

‘I was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people around me. I’ve moved away.

‘I wasn’t a good person then. And it’s hard to watch it back, it’s hard, oh my God [to think that] my kids are going to have to watch this when they grow up.

‘But when you see the clips, can you understand why Phil and Fern would’ve asked those questions?’ Holly Willoughby asked.

‘Yes, completely. I completely understand, you have to remember I was in complete denial of my life at that point.

‘I was in a wrong marriage, with the wrong person, [but] I’m not going to blame anybody else for my doings – I hold my hands up and take complete responsibility. Nobody forced me to do anything.

‘But when you’re in a marriage like that or relationship or surrounded by people… until you find that strength to get out of what you’re in, there’s not a lot you can do about it.’

The 30-year-old continued: ‘I shouldn’t have done the interview – but I’m glad I have done because it’s changed me as a person.

‘That interview, the News of the World video… it’s all changed me. It gave me a massive wake up call to go ‘come on Kerry, you’re a mum’.

Kerry was referring to the infamous 2009 News of the World video that she admits did indeed show her snorting cocaine.

‘Yes. Yes, I was. I hold my hands up,’ the mother-of-four said. ‘And if I hadn’t of done any of those things, the situation
I was in, the people I was surrounded by, I had nobody to help me – these were my friends and family – and I had no one to help me.

‘I was made bankrupt. I’d been dropped by Iceland. It was spiralling out of control and I started taking more and more drugs.

Katona said the turning point came when she attended a two-week boot camp in January.

‘I was asking my husband to help me but he was not helping at all. Until I went to boot camp for two weeks at the beginning of January this year and I was clean for two weeks and I did not want to go home.

‘Because the exercise made me really think, it cleared my head. When you’re diagnosed with bipolar all the doctors say, go and get exercise, but you can’t be bothered, until you actually do it, and it cleared my mind and I thought I don’t want to go home.’

A month later, Katona and Mark Croft split up. A police investigation into how the couple spent £10million in their five years together is under way.

She says coming off the drugs was like ‘coming out of a coma. It was like, “right, what’s going on, where’s my money gone?”

‘So when I came off the medication, we starting arguing, I wanted to find out where it’d all gone.’

The reality star says her tell-all documentary, Coming Clean, which aired on Sunday night, was about ridding herself of all the skeletons in her closet.

One of the reasons I’ve been so open and honest, is because I don’t want anyone from my past to have anything on me any more.

‘You know, it was a lot of blackmailing… and I couldn’t get out of the situation I was in.’

After Katona’s interview, Schofield tweeted: ‘Well done Kerry. What a change and back to the person we knew and loved. A credit to her and the team behind her.’

Source: Daily Mail