I was a mother who took cocaine… until this shameful moment with my four-year-old daughter made me realise I’d crossed the line. I can still barely think about it: BRYONY GORDON

I will never forget that embarrassing moment when my four-year-old daughter came into the kitchen to ask for breakfast and found me still awake from the night before, under the influence of the cocaine I had taken while I was asleep in her bed upstairs.

As I tried to recover from my excessive drinking, she appeared in her pink pajamas, requesting toast and the movie Trolls. Somehow I made breakfast together, pushed her onto the freshly cleaned kitchen table with an iPad, and spent the rest of the day thinking about how I was going to be a parent.

My husband was away on business (hence the wild behavior at home, which I would often display at the bar) and I knew at that moment that I had crossed a line of no return.

I ordered a taxi to my mother’s house, where I broke down and told her I thought I was addicted. It was this incident that ultimately led me to rehab, and more than nine years later it fills me with such deep shame that I’ve had to stop writing this column several times to take deep breaths and remind myself that we’re not there anymore and that my daughter is fine and hasn’t seen me drunk or drunk since.

So why are you talking about this now? Because it all came back to me this week when I watched the Katie Price documentary and saw the heartbreaking interviews with her children, Princess and Junior, in which they recalled the chaos they endured while their mother was taking cocaine.

Junior, who was just 13 at the time, said: ‘I remember once I was in bed waiting for him to come back and at 3.30am I was woken up by some loud noises and saw him coming into the room.’ ‘I’ll never forget the look on his face. He was obviously up to something… I could see it in his eyes. This scared me because I had never seen my mother like this. My mother was on drugs and couldn’t take care of us and that’s the reality of it.’

Junior would continue to live with his father, Peter Andre. ‘I felt like I wasn’t good enough because he didn’t fix himself for me or us,’ she added. ‘Aren’t we good enough for you?’

Her sentiments were echoed by her sister Princess, who recalled that when she was just 11 years old, her primary attachment to her mother was through a blanket she had sprayed with Price’s perfume. ‘I remember going home after school and feeling so alone, I hugged the blanket and cried.’

Breaking into tears, Junior and Princess Andre said Price’s drug use made them question whether they were ‘good enough’ as ​​children.

These heartbreaking details will, of course, lead many to criticize Price, who has since returned to the right path, at least where drugs are concerned. The way it affects her children, she says, “breaks my heart.” But I appreciate the family’s honesty because it sheds light on an issue that very few people talk about, and that means many children living with a parent who struggles with drugs and alcohol.

According to the latest data, 478,000 children have a parent with a problem alcohol or drug use. This large number is partly why I talk so openly about my daughter’s shameful behavior as a young child; Because healing is possible and I really wish more women were aware of it.

I knew nothing about addiction when I was pregnant. I really thought a baby would cure me of my hard-partying habits. It was a shock, then, to find myself craving drink and drugs just a week after giving birth. I was so ashamed that I buried my addiction under layers and layers of denial.

I consider myself lucky that my husband is a sober and present father – obviously Peter Andre is too, because if he were like me, I’m pretty sure social services would take our daughter away from us. Likewise, I am so, so grateful that I was able to go to rehab because recovery gifted my daughter with the mother she deserved all along.

There are many people who find it completely incomprehensible that a woman cannot find the willpower to stop using drugs after having a child. To these people I want to say: You are lucky, because it is clear that you have not had to face the misery of addiction.

This is a very common and highly misunderstood disease, and it thrives on the shame and stigma attached to it. When I got clean, I couldn’t believe the number of women I met who had stories almost identical to mine. Like me, they were putting off talking to a GP or therapist for fear their child might be taken away from them.

I remember hearing their stories and thinking: ‘If only I had known you existed, I could have gotten help sooner.’ So, even though I knew full well that people would judge me very badly for this, I kept repeating that unpleasant memory of extremely neglectful parenting – because there might be a woman out there who needs to know that she is not a bad person, just a sick woman who sometimes makes bad choices because of this disease.

So let’s applaud Princess and Little Andre for speaking so openly about their childhood experiences, and Katie Price for not trying to minimize or deny what they went through. By doing this, they send a powerful message: You can only fix a problem by admitting that it is there in the first place.

Zendaya is a goddess… but she must be melting!

Congratulations To Zendaya – not for her star turn in Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster The Odyssey, but for attending the London premiere in a dress that made her look like a literal Greek statue.

Hollywood star Zendaya dazzled in her Schiaparelli dress at the London premiere of Odyssey

The actress’s Schiaparelli couture gown was flown directly here by private jet from where it was displayed on the Paris catwalk that morning, and her breastplate looked hotter than the Ithacan sun.

No wonder she transformed into a free-flowing Valentino dress the moment she entered the cinema.

Who knew Wimbledon had an on-site pharmacy? All the women who walk limping with their feet hurting, these are them.

Compeed blister band-aids appear to have been one of the best-selling items at the All England Club’s chemist, with sales up sharply on last year, perhaps due to the dramatic increase in the number of celebrities and influencers attending in their stilettos.

All of this proves once and for all that tennis, while it carries the risk of injury, is no more competitive sport than fashion.

Hey Jude, I love your company

Many will focus on Saturday’s England-Norway match, not to analyze the football but to catch a glimpse of the iconic friendship between Jude Bellingham and Erling Haaland.

I’ll be focusing on England’s game against Norway on Saturday night, mostly to check how Jude Bellingham and Erling Haaland are coping with having to play against each other.

The iconic duo have something of a friendly relationship and the internet is flooded with videos of them gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes from behind when they played together for Borussia Dortmund.

Forget Heated Competition; this is more like Cleated Competition!

Stay cool with a hot water bottle

How are you doing during the latest ‘mass sleep deprivation episode’, Greenpeace’s term for heatwaves in Britain? After trying all the hot weather hacks — keeping ice in front of the fan, closing the blinds, and closing the windows during the day — I finally found the best trick; pushing my hot water bottle into the freezer and then falling asleep clutching it like I do in the dead of winter. Unlike an air conditioning unit, it is inexpensive to run and useful all year round.