Former EastEnders star Danniella Westbrook says she was once turned down by budget supermarket Aldi when she was begging for a job when broke for being famous.
The actress, best-known as Walford’s Sam Mitchell, struggled to find work after being sacked from the BBC show twice because of cocaine abuse – which she says she has been clean from now for years.
Speaking to The Mirror, she said: “When you’re in a low place you go home and sob and it makes you not want to be an actor sometimes, but by then the whole country knows you and you can’t just go and get a job in Asda.
“Trust me, I’ve tried. When I was on the breadline I tried to get a job at Aldi and people were like: ‘we can’t really give you a job, because you’ll be a liability because people will be coming in taking pictures of you.'”
Danniella Westrbook said Aldi wouldn’t give her a job (Image: ITV)
The star said she even begged and tried to persuade the supermarket to hire her by saying her fans would eventually get “bored”.
Danniella said: “I tried everywhere to get work and I just couldn’t get a normal job, but when you sign up to a soap it’s very hard to work on anything else, so you’re not going to get onto a Downton Abbey unless you’re very lucky.”
The star arrived in Walford in 1990 when she was just 16, to play Phil and Grant Mitchell’s feisty younger sister.
She left after three years to take another role.
Danniella said she even begged Aldi to hire her (Image: Getty Images)
Two years later Danniella was invited back but was axed in 1996 after bosses tired of her poor attendance and unreliability.
On The Jeremy Kyle Show she later admitted to blowing £100,000 on cocaine over a two-year period.
In 1996 BBC bosses decided to give her another chance, but in 2000 she was axed a second time.
But speaking in the first episode of Girl Talk, a new YouTube show hosted by best-selling author and celebrity agent Melanie Blake, Danniella said the BBC1 show was right to fire her.
Danniella made the confessions on Girl Talk on YouTube (Image: YOUTUBE/ getty)
Danniella also revealed the decision actually saved her life, she said: “I deserved my sackings, because I was a liability to that programme.
“I was a terrible cocaine addict when I was young and I did abuse the platform I was on. I just couldn’t be trusted
“It wasn’t a decision that they really had to sit down and make. It was a necessity, I had to go. In my early days I was using all the time. And if they had kept me I probably wouldn’t be here today.”
Danniella, now 47, has always been open about her drug fuelled past after she was famously photographed at the 2000 British Soap Awards showing her missing septum from years of cocaine abuse.
She checked into rehab, but relapsed in 2014 after 14 years of sobriety, before finally getting clean.
To see the first episode of Girl Talk on YouTube go to:GIRL TALK with Melanie Blake | Three SOAP ICONS discuss her Sunday Times Best Seller RUTHLESS WOMEN
To order a copy of Ruthless Women go to:https://amzn.to/3cK6uQq
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
