Goody: 'I thought I had bowel cancer'

Jade Goody has revealed that she thought she had bowel cancer because she was taking too many slimming pills.

The ex-Big Brother housemate said she has had four blood transfusions after taking a cocktail of diet pills, water tablets and laxatives in a bid to lose weight.

She told ITV1's This Morning: "When I was taking the slimming pills and the laxatives, it tells your bowel to stop and it does the work for you. So now my bowel collapses every now and then, it just forgets how to work and the pain is awful.

"I've had two blood transfusions where I've fainted, once on a television show and once just in a toilet. After I had both of my children I had to have another two blood transfusions because my blood clotting cells and hormone cells were extremely low."

The 26-year-old explained that she regularly took twice the recommended dosage and flew to LA to buy stronger pills, paying up to £300 for a small bottle.

But she denied that admitting her addiction was an attempt to gain public sympathy, commenting: "I've never been one of these people that's like: 'Yeah, pay me and I'll talk about an eating disorder' or 'I'm not getting in much magazines so I'll talk about my slimming pill disaster'."

Goody vowed to steer clear of the tablets in an interview last month, saying: "I've done so much damage to my body through taking the pills and making myself sick. I've gone down that road and don't want to go back."