There was the award-winning starlet who twitched so much that I was sure she was about to break into an epileptic fit. There was the girl who broke out in a sudden, feverish sweat on set and shuddered for hours on our couch. And then my favorite: the model who was so drugged up that we stopped the shoot and sat her down to eat, hoping that some food in her system might sober her up a bit. But our efforts were futile: she promptly passed out face-down in her bowl of spaghetti.
My mother says that the drug abuse was far worse in her day. Back in the 1980s cocaine craze, everyone was running to the bathroom several times an hour. But nowadays all kinds of drugs have infiltrated the industry: A heroin habit seems as common as a Valium addiction. Speed is making quite a strong comeback, and perhaps this can be explained by the drug’s powerful ability to make anyone lose drastic amounts of weight, which is of course a convenient side effect for many models.
So what can be done? My mother and I have personally sent girls to therapists, to rehab, and sometimes back to their families to recoup.