Corrie actress reveals cocaine regrets

Coronation Street star Margi Clarke has spoken candidly about her cocaine addiction for the first time.

The 54-year-old actress started to rely on the class-A drug after leaving her role as Jackie Dobbs on the ITV1 soap in 1999. She was also still grieving for the loss of her mother Frances, who passed away in 1995.

"I had to somehow get over not being in the limelight, not being able to express myself in a creative way," Clarke told Liverpool radio station City Talk. "I was off my cake. I was taking cocaine. I loathe it. I think it's got an awful lot of people on mind control and my mind was controlled by it. I used to call it the white worm, it burrows a hole in your personality.

"I paid for every line I took, paid handsomely over a period of time. I spent £20,000 on cocaine. It was utterly selfish and I wasn't the best mum in the world at that time.

"My poor dad was so distraught, he was telling me to fight back and 'Come on girl, get yourself off the floor'. What stopped me in the end was that I got sick and poverty helped."

Clarke returned to her Coronation Street role earlier this year following her nine-year break from the programme. She has since admitted that she was not committed enough to the show in her first stint and vowed never to "look a gift horse in the mouth again".