NORTH EAST pop star Michelle Heaton has said she was “killing” herself as she struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, it has been reported.

The TV personality and former Liberty X star, who is originally from Gateshead, recently shared a photograph on social media of herself leaving a Priory Group facility which treats people for mental health problems and addiction.

In an post on Instagram, she told followers she had been "given a second chance at life" and told her fitness coach husband Hugh Hanley and two children they were her "world".

She wrote: "I’ve been given a second chance at life and I know I’m lucky to have that.
"I’m overwhelmed with all the support and messages I’ve received when I was in rehab and since I’ve been out.
"Thank you to my family, friends, people I’ve met - and not met.

"It really does mean a lot. X"

In an interview with The Sun newspaper, the 41-year-old said that going to rehab saved her life.

Ms Heaton said she received the treatment thanks to “a joint effort from all my very dear friends who wanted me to live” including model and TV personality Katie Price.

She added: “What I was doing was a suicide mission.

“I never actually thought, ‘I want to kill myself’, but ultimately I was killing myself.

“I was crying out for help when I couldn’t actually ask for help.

“But when you’re an addict, it feels like there’s no way out.”

Heaton said she was drinking “ludicrous” amounts of alcohol and “would be sick then… drink more”.

She added she hit “rock bottom with the alcohol” last September and had “excruciating pains”.

“My doctor could feel my liver sticking out because I was so thin,” she said.

“I had scratch scars because liver issues make your skin itchy.”

She said she had to live with “pain and suffering” after a hysterectomy brought on an early menopause.

“Without the (hormone replacement therapy) HRT I’m just a walking nothing.

“But I felt I had to live with that pain and suffering myself because I made that choice.

“I wasn’t allowed to cry or grieve or ask for help and I didn’t have therapy.”

Heaton also said she “felt like a bad mother”, adding: “I’m so lucky I’ve got two beautiful children.

“They just want to see mummy well and they want to have ‘fun mummy’.

“They want me to play football with them, they want me to do their hair.

“It was those simple things that I wasn’t able to give them.

“I never put them at risk in a physical way, but they saw me being sick and were worried about mummy and wondering why she shouted.

“And my husband (Hugh Hanley) wondered if I’d be alive when he woke up.”