Kate 'high' for Mandela meeting

Kate Moss is today at the centre of a new cocaine scandal.

The 32-year-old supermodel allegedly used the Class A drug only minutes before meeting Nelson Mandela at his home, according to a close friend.

It is one of a string of revelations about her alleged "insatiable" appetite for cocaine during trips to South Africa.

Model booker Gavin Maselle, who met Moss when she was on a visit there, says the model was high on the drug every time he saw her during an eight-year friendship.

He claims she would take several grams of cocaine in a day, often before major professional events. Once she even snorted it from a lavatory floor when there was no other surface available.

Mr Maselle said: "Kate has been addicted for years. I truly hope she stays off coke because if she ever goes back, it will be the end of her."

Moss was pictured snorting cocaine at a recording studio last year while going out with heroinaddicted singer Pete Doherty. She spent weeks in an Arizona rehabilitation-clinic to get over the addiction, which also cost her a number of major advertising deals.

After 143 days abroad following the revelations, she returned to Britain in January to be quizzed by police over the allegations. No charges were brought against her.

Mr Maselle was with Moss in 1998 when she went to meet Mr Mandela, then South African president, at his Cape Town home.

He says the model dragged him into a bathroom just minutes before meeting Mr Mandela.

He said: "She was insatiable, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. We were there at Mandela's house in the Bishop's Court area of Cape Town - and Kate was doing coke."

On another occasion, minutes after they first met each other in South Africa, Mr Maselle said Moss followed him to the gents' lavatories and they snorted cocaine together.

The following day, she "ordered" five grams of the substance for a party, and the day after that she had several lines as she launched a major modelling event.