Naomi Campbell has confessed she was “ᴋɪllɪпg heɾself” with drugs in the 90s as she opened up about battling addiction during the height of her career.

The Brit-born supermodel, who’s spent most of her life living in New York, admitted she turned to cocaine and alcohol as a method of dealing with childhood abandonment issues as she got candid in an interview for AppleTV+’s new docuseries, The Super Models. She also revealed her addiction was triggered by the grief she experienced following the murder of her close friend and legendary designer Gianni Versace.

The fashion world was left shaken when the Italian icon was killed outside his Miami Beach home in 1997 and Naomi struggled to cope with his death. Detailing their close bond, she said: “He was very sensitive to feeling me, like, he pushed me. He would push me to step outside and go further when I didn’t think I had it within myself to do it. So when he died, my grief became very bad.”

The 53-year-old recalled how her grief was one of the feelings she was attempting to bury with drug use. “I guess when I started using, that was one of the things I tried to cover up, was grief. Addiction is such a…bull**t thing, it really is,” she said.

Naomi had a close bond with Gianni Versace (Image: Rex Features)

But the drugs only left her suffering even more. She added: “You think, ‘Oh it’s gonna heal that wound.’ It doesn’t. It can cause such huge fear and anxiety. So I got really angry.”

The documentary also included clips from Naomi’s 2001 interview with Barbara Walters in which she spoke about how her “core issues” came from the “abandonment and rejection” she faced during her childhood. Naomi was born to Jamaican dancer Valerie Morris and never met her father after he abandoned her mother while she was pregnant.

Naomi struggled with addiction for five years

During part of her childhood, she lived with relatives while her mum toured around Europe with her dance troupe. Recalling how this impacted her, Naomi told Barbara Walters: “Not knowing your father, not seeing your mother. That brings up a lot of … it manifests a lot of feelings. One of those feelings… absolutely is anger. But I think that’s a really normal thing. I’ve not always displayed my anger in the appropriate time. It’s always been an unappropriate time. But it’s a manifestation of a deeper issue, anger.”

Naomi’s mum is Jamaican-born dancer Valerie Morris (Image: REX)

Reflecting on the abandonment issues she spoke about, Naomi revealed during the new documentary she tried to use drugs to cover up those feelings too. She explained: “When you try to cover something up, your feelings — you spoke about abandonment. I tried to cover that with something.”

Naomi battled with drug addiction for five years and admitted it took a serious toll on her health. “You can’t cover it. I was killing myself. It was very hurtful,” she added. In 1999 she collapsed during a photoshoot and the terrifying incident was enough of a wake-up call that she checked herself into rehab.

Naomi checked herself into rehab after collapsing at a photoshoot in 1999 (Image: WireImage)

“I chose to go to rehab. It was one of the best and only things I could have done for myself at that time,” she said. Reflecting on how far she’s come, she added: “It’s taken me many years to work on and deal with and it does still come up sometimes. But I just now have the tools how to deal with it now when it comes up.”