TIMELINE OF SOAP STAR’S MELTDOWN
that. And it’s a lesson most people learn from experience.
“But I learned my lesson from my mum. I didn’t need to learn it from experience. And the more I see people get into trouble, the more I think ‘I don’t want to do that’.
“I know people who are in a bad way. I have had a few friends die because of drugs. It is common.”
He added: “The relationships I have established are with people who respect me enough not to bring me into that side of things.
“There is an understanding. I don’t talk about drugs with my friends.” Danniella’s turbulent life means she is rarely out of the headlines and her notoriety has made Kai a target for sick threats online.
He said: “Every day I go on Twitter and people say things like ‘I wish you was dead’. Sometimes I’ll get 40 messages like that in a week. And it gets to you.
“On the internet people can hide behind screens. The internet is a dangerous place. It can make you a millionaire or you could end up dead.” Comments about Danniella are tough for Kai to read. He added: “When people say stuff about my mum it gets me upset. It’s frustrating that people make judgements about her. They say she’s a bad parent.
“That hurts because I know she is a good mum.
“I feel incredibly protective over her. I love my mum. Our relationship is the best it’s been in a long time. We clash but that’s because we’re similar. Mum probably says
I’m a right little bastard, but she loves me.” Born in Walthamstow, London to cab driver dad Andy and mum Sue, a shop assistant.
Joins the Sylvia Young Theatre School aged 12 where Denise Van Outen and Dani Behr are her classmates.
Takes cocaine for the first time, aged 14, in a London nightclub – she later confesses. Rejoins the soap, but by this time is regularly using cocaine. She is sacked one year later because of her behaviour on and off set. She later admits to spending £400 a day on coke.
Has son Kai with then-boyfriend Robert Fernandez. She later confesses to using drugs throughout her pregnancy and admits to considering suicide several times.
She splits from Robert two years later after she was flung through a car windscreen in a crash.
Marries van driver Ben Morgan after knowing him for eight weeks. They move to Australia, but divorce nine months on.
Producers give Danniella a second chance, but it is shortlived, with bosses deciding to ditch her and recast the role in 2001.
Signs of excessive drug abuse are clear for the first time in photos taken at the British Soap Awards with her septum missing. She says her nose had been like that for seven months and EastEnders chiefs had been careful not to show it during filming.
Checks into The Priory and six months later appears on TV claiming to be free from drugs – despite her rambling, incoherent answers. She admits: “It was obvious I wasn’t [clean]”.
Has daughter Jodie in September with millionaire businessman Kevin Jenkins, then goes on to marry him in December.
Wins a spot on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! but finds the experience traumatic and quits after nine days. Vows to leave her celebrity life behind and become a stay-at-home mum.
Ten years on, is back on EastEnders for four episodes.
Leaves the UK for a life in California with Kevin, Jodie and Kai and becomes a born-again Christian.
Joins Hollyoaks as Trudy Ryan, boss to Jacqui and Theresa McQueen, but her contract is cancelled after a second stint in 2015, with bosses claiming that she “breached her contract”.
Marriage to Kevin comes to an end, after they struggle when his security business fails. Just three months on, becomes engaged to cage fighter Tom Richards. But the whirlwind romance ends soon after.
Exposed in this newspaper for sending explicit images on the toilet to strangers.
Finishes fifth in Celebrity Big Brother and shares extensive details of her life on In Therapy. She tells how during her years as an addict, she had been kidnapped and gangraped by dealers as punishment for an unpaid £5,000 debt. Admits she almost died after becoming dangerously ill with septicaemia.