Naomi Campbell says brutal killing of pal sparked horrific cocaine battle spiral

21 September 2023 , 18:09

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Naomi in the documentary

Naomi Campbell has told how the death of close pal Gianni Versace sparked a horrific downward spiral in her long battle with cocaine.

The supermodel revealed she started using the drug to deal with childhood abandonment by her parents. But things took a terrible turn for the worst after Versace was gunned down outside his South Beach mansion in Miami in July 1997. Naomi, 53, says in a documentary: “Grief has been a very strange thing in my life because it doesn’t always show.

"I go into a shock and freak out when it happens, and then later is when I break. But I kept the sadness inside. [Late designer] Azzedine Alaia was my papa. With him, I learnt about chosen families. The same for Gianni Versace. So, when he died, my grief became very bad. When I started using, that was one of the things I tried to cover up was grief.

"Addiction is such a… it’s just a bulls**t thing, it really is. You spoke about abandonment. I tried to cover that with something. You can’t cover it. It was very hurtful. I was killing myself. 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."

Naomi with Versace and fellow supermodel Carla Bruni (Getty Images)

Naomi opened up about her past in the documentary (Apple TV)

London-born Naomi opened up about her battle with drug and alcohol ­addiction early in her career for the new candid documentary called The Super Models. The four-part Apple TV+ docuseries also looks back on her life on the catwalk with fellow ­supermodels Cindy ­Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Carla Bruni and Christy Turlington.

Possession of heroin and cocaine no longer a crime in province in radical move

Speaking of working with Versace, Naomi says: “He would push me to step outside and go further.” Naomi checked into rehab in 1999 after collapsing at a photoshoot following five years of cocaine ­addiction. But she insisted that was the only drug she used and never on the catwalk.

The model added “I chose to go to rehab. It was one of the best and only things I could have done for myself at that time. 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.”

Christopher Bucktin