Naomi Campbell opens up on 'killing' herself with cocaine after Gianni Versace was murdered
She's spoken out about her grief in a new docu-series
Naomi Campbell has opened up about the grief she experienced following the death of fashion designer Gianna Versace.
The Italian designer, who founded the Versace brand, was murdered on the doorstep of his Miami mansion by Andrew Cunanan on July 15 1997 - sending shockwaves around the world.
Supermodel, and friend, Campbell has spoken about the grief she felt in the wake of Versace’s death admitted that it was ‘very bad’.
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Speaking on the Apple TV+ series The Super Models, Campbell shared: “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 actually happens, and then later is when I break. But I kept the sadness inside, I just dealt with it.”
She continued: “[Late designer] Azzedine Alaïa was my papa. With him, I learnt about chosen families. The same for Gianni Versace.
“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.
“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 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 mom-of-two checked into rehab back in 1999 after struggling with cocaine addiction.
The 53-year-old explained in the docu-series that she turned to her addiction as a way to try and ‘cover up’ her grief and upset during hard times.
“When you try to cover something up, your feelings — you spoke about abandonment,” she said.
“I tried to cover that with something. You can’t cover it. I was killing myself. It was very hurtful.”
Campbell says she also faced abandonment issues from her parents, which contributed to her drug use.
"It does still come up sometimes. But I just now have the tools to deal with it now when it comes up," Campbell said.
"I have to think of something outside of myself – something greater than myself."
Campbell made the frank revelations in the series which documents her career alongside her contemporaries Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, and Christy Turlington.
Exploring their lengthy careers in high-end fashion, with the synopsis reading: “Four women from different corners of the world united in New York… Their prestige was so extraordinary that it enabled the four to supersede the brands they showcased, making the names Naomi, Cindy, Linda and Christy as prominent as the designers who styled them.”
Claire Reid