'Stardom drove me to drugs'

Billie Piper has admitted she experimented with drugs and contemplated suicide at the height of her pop fame.

She said her estranged husband Chris Evans helped her pull back from the brink - and also revealed that she 'won't be taking a penny' from him in their divorce settlement.

The 23-year-old actress, who has won new popularity as Rose Tyler on BBC's Doctor Who, said that she became so miserable at being exploited while a teenager that she became close to breaking point.

'My eyes were vague and dead, and my mouth was smiling without feeling,' she said. 'I had a very dark moment at 16 when I didn't want to be here any more, but I did nothing about it, thank God.

'I was a little girl from Swindon, but managers and others work you to death, and you become exhausted and bitter. I was young, green, and taken advantage of. There was a massive financial rip-off and, although I was working twice as hard as I am now, I was left with hardly any money.'

Miss Piper was 14 when she released her first hit single. When she was 17 she had several fainting fits which led to accusations that she had tried drugs - something she denied at the time.

Speaking about her drug use in an interview with Radio Times, she said: 'I tried all those things, but it never became a problem.

'I was so green and that's what saved me - otherwise I may have got into it more. I had my head in the clouds, was mad, neurotic and self-destructive, a very different character to the one you see today. I was saved mostly by my parents, friends and boyfriends but it could have gone either way.'

Evans has admitted he was close to a breakdown before meeting Miss Piper. 'Chris and I found each other when it could have gone badly for both of us, and we saved each other from our worlds of madness,' she said.

She insisted she will not be getting any money from Evans, who is worth an estimated £30million.

Hitting out at women who go for large settlements when they split with millionaires, she said: 'I'm not taking a penny from him. That's disgusting.'