Abigail: 'I did take cocaine'

The girlfriend of England soccer player Peter Crouch has spoken for the first time about her drug-taking past.

Abigail Clancy says the Liverpool striker has been "100 per cent supportive" after reports that she took cocaine as a wannabe teenage pop star.

Clancy, 20, said: "It was years ago. It's in the past. Peter knew all about it and everything's fine. Of course we're still together. He's amazing." She was at the launch of the Living TV contest Britain's Next Top Model, in which she will compete against 12 other girls.

Wearing hotpants, she walked down the catwalk to applause from a star-studded audience. It was her first public appearance since the cocaine allegations forced her early return from Germany during the World Cup.

Last weekend, a Sunday tabloid published pictures of her snorting the drug two years ago.

She said: "I was with Peter on Sunday and I had his support. I was totally worried when it all came out and of course it's bad when all this s**t happens. But it's best to get it out there now rather than later. All I want to do is concentrate on my modelling from now on."

She said she and Crouch, whom she met a few months ago while working in a bar, were going on holiday together next week. "He's not here because this is my thing but he'll be there when I get back."

Clancy said she was "not interested" in being a WAG - wife and girlfriend - despite telling the show's producers that her dream would be to marry a footballer and spend the rest of her life shopping. "That was tongue-in-cheek. I'm only 20, I've got my career ahead of me."

She had got on with "all of the WAGs" in Germany and had known Wayne Rooney's fiancee Coleen McLoughlin since they were at dance classes.

The Living TV show starts on 24 July. The final has been filmed but the winner remains a secret.