Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie has admitted she was once so strung out
on drugs she spent eight hours talking to a clothes hamper.
Paranoid, hallucinating and hooked on crystal methamphetamine she
thought someone was hiding in her dirty-clothes bin.
She says: "I remember thinking somebody was inside of it, going to
come and get me, so I was talking to the person who was crawling in
the hamper.
"I was actually telling them that they were very rude, if you can
believe that one!"
Fergie tells US fitness magazine Self that crystal meth ruined her
life — putting her in debt and causing her to lose weight.
The now curvy singer appears on the cover of the July issue and goes
into detail about her painful relationship with drugs.
Once a child actor who appeared on US TV show Kids Incorporated,
Fergie says she learned from the age of eight what professionalism
means.
"I wanted to make sure everyone was happy," she says.
"I learned to hold in feelings, and when you do that, at some point,
they're going to come out in a big way."
It wasn't long before Fergie began taking crystal meth.
"I didn't really have any boundaries," she says. "I was already
taking Ecstasy. What was another drug?"
Fergie says she soon found out the price she would pay for dabbling
in crystal meth.
She revealed: "Little by little, more and more, I started feeling
scared and powerless and I didn't know how I was going to stop.
"Instead of just wanting meth, my body needed it. That's when you get
deeper into addiction."
Now a slave to the drug, the singer juggled numerous dealers and sunk
her savings into maintaining her habit.
"I went through hundreds of thousands of dollars," she says.
"I'd get limos in the middle of the night and have extravagant
weekends at the Mondrian Hotel."
Food wasn't top on her priority list and Fergie admits to eating
"maybe once every two days."
Not wanting to answer questions about her appearance, she started
hiding away from the world.
Fergie says: "There came a point when I didn't even want to go to
clubs any more because I wasn't attractive. I had bad breakouts."
After intervention from friends, Fergie decided to go drug free her own way, without
going to rehab.
She says: "I hit a point where that strong will inside of me, that
little girl, started knocking on the door of my brain and said: 'Hey,
I'm still here. Let's get back to the plan'.
"I think there is a higher power. I don't know what it looks like. I
don't think we can even comprehend what it is.
"But I definitely think it's helped me."
Drug-free and with a new outlook on life, Stacy Ferguson felt reborn
and started calling herself Fergie, as a symbol of her fresh start.
It was in 2001, while she was finishing contractual obligations
to the band Wild Orchids, that she met Will.I.Am of The Black Eyed Peas at a
Minneapolis radio show.
When the rapper announced he was looking for a girl singer to appear
on the group's single Shut Up, Fergie was recommended.
She says: "Being in the Peas has made me such a better artist, with
so much more confidence."
Three years after joining the group Fergie finally achieved her goal
and released her first solo album — The Dutchess.
So far it has sold more than 3.2 million copies.
Always candid about her struggle with crystal meth, Fergie hopes her
story will help others.
She says: "Even when you feel like you're at your worst — because I
went to that place, I went to hell and back — you can pick yourself up.
"You just have to make the right choices. Everything is a choice."
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