Michelle Heaton apologises on-air for drinking before morning show appearances

“You trusted me and I’m sorry.” This TV star broke down as she confessed she’d been drinking before appearing on a popular morning show.

UK pop star and TV personality Michelle Heaton broke down in tears as she apologised to morning show host Lorraine Kelly today for drinking before her past appearances on the show.

The 42-year-old former Liberty X singer has been candid about her booze battle, which was brought on by a string of severe medical issues, and how she entered rehab earlier this year because of it.

And today, the star was left overwhelmed with emotion in the opening moments of her interview with the Scottish broadcaster, revealing how she used to drink before appearing on Lorraine’s show, which airs live at 9am each weekday in the UK.

Sitting opposite the host, Michelle said through tears: “I am great now, I promised myself I wouldn’t cry … Just off the back of that, I wanted to apologise to you before we begin.”

Michelle Heaton: ‘There were times where I drank before I sat on this sofa.’

She continued: “Because there were times where I drank before I sat on this sofa and you trusted me and I did campaigns for you and I love you so much because you’ve always been there to support me and I just wanted to say sorry.”

“Oh, Michelle,” Lorraine empathically responded. ”Don’t be daft, you don’t have to apologise to me or to anybody else.

“The easy path to have taken for you was to keep drinking, the hard thing was to say ‘No, I’m not going to do this anymore. I’ve got an amazing husband, family and friends.’

Morning show host Lorraine Kelly: ‘You’re one of the strongest women I know.’

“And that takes real guts. You’re one of the strongest women that I know.”

Lorraine went on: “We’ve followed when you’ve had all of those health problems.

“You’ve had a double mastectomy, a hysterectomy, all of these things that you’ve gone through and you’re still standing.”

Before her interview with Lorraine, Michelle and her husband Hugh Hanley spoke about the impact her addiction has had on their life in a candid segment for the show.

REALITY OF ADDICTION

The singer said: “It was five years really the trauma of all my health issues, it blew up. I just didn’t know how to stop drinking.

“Now I worry, I worry about what my addictions had on me physically and also on my family. I had [Hugh] by my side but I pushed him away.”

Hugh added: “The last three or four years have been extremely tough knowing that Michelle was in there but the addictions were ripping her apart.

Michelle and her husband Hugh Hanley.

“Sometimes the way she would be towards me and the kids wasn’t nice but I knew that wasn’t Michelle and it wasn’t who she really is and I kind of held on to that.

“Whenever I brought it up and addressed it, it was just an argument or, ‘You don’t understand. I’m not an alcoholic.’”

Michelle added: “With his strength, he’s helped me get through it to where I am now, not a lot of people are that lucky.”

REHAB STINT

The Liberty X singer spent four weeks in The Priory after being left just days from death after going on a cocaine and booze-fuelled “suicide mission” for three years.

She previously credited Katie Price for getting her the help she needed, saying: “I texted Katie while I was in The Priory, ‘You saved my life’. Because The Priory did save my life.

“What I was doing was a suicide mission. I never actually thought, ‘I want to kill myself’, but ultimately I was killing myself.

On stage with Liberty X. Picture: Brian Rasic/Getty Images

“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.”

Michelle had been downing up to two bottles of wine and a bottle of vodka virtually every day since 2018, and snorting cocaine.

Michelle shot to fame on the UK version of Popstars in 2000, leading to the formation of Liberty X a year later. After they split in 2007 she moved into writing and TV work.

A downward spiral set in when she discovered in 2012 that she was a carrier of the mutated BRCA2 gene.

It meant she had an 85 per cent risk of breast cancer and up to a 40 per cent risk of ovarian cancer. So she took the agonising decision to have a double mastectomy in 2012 and a hysterectomy in 2014.

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was republished with permission