SHERIDAN SMITH

English actress Sheridan Smith has been taking the stage and screen by storm over recent years following a very public battle with substance abuse. From playing Cilla Black to winning a BAFTA for her role in Mrs Biggs, she is the actress on everybody’s lips at the moment.

But previously she revealed she was rushed to A&E in 2016 after she abruptly stopped taking anti-anxiety medication to which she had become addicted.

In a documentary for ITV, Sheridan recalled an incident after the 2016 BAFTAS, during which a joke made at her expense led to her immediately stopping taking the pills she was addicted to, with dangerous consequences.

She said,“graham Norton was hosting and made a joke at my expense about me being a drunk… I was so humiliated. It’s a room full of your peers, people you want to work with or have worked with.”

Sheridan continued, “That night, for me, was like the final straw before my brain totally went off the deep end.

“What people didn’t realise is that I’d become addicted to anti-anxiety tablets. That night I took myself off to a hotel on my own. In my crazy mind, I thought, ‘I’ll (stop taking the tablets) myself’. I went there and just stopped my tablets.

“Weirdly, a friend of mine had rung me and she came to the hotel. It’s a miracle she did because what I didn’t realise is that if you stop these tablets abruptly, you seizure.

“I seizured five times and got rushed to A&E and she’s the one who got me breathing again.”

Smith is now starring on the West End in musical Opening Night with her star only set to rise even further.

Way to go, Sheridan!