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Dancing on Ice’s The Vivienne recalls doctors fearing for her life during ketamine addiction-Pierra Willix-Entertainment – Metro
She was having the drug for ‘breakfast, lunch and dinner.’
The Vivienne has shared details of her serious drug addiction (Picture: Mike Marsland/WireImage)
The Vivienne has revealed she had to leave the country after battling a serious drug addiction that left her close to death.
The Welsh drag queen, 30, won the first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK in 2019, and is currently in the running to take out the Dancing on Ice title this weekend.
But years before she was in the public eye, The Vivienne left doctors worried that she might die from a ketamine addiction.
In the space of a single month, she was hospitalised three times.
When appearing on Drag Race, The Vivienne shared that while she had been clean for two years, she’d been consuming ketamine as ‘breakfast, lunch and dinner’ in the depths of her addiction.
‘I could have three bags of it just putting my face on. I did it on and off for four years,’ she has now said.
The drag queen won the first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK (Picture: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images)
‘I was getting evicted from apartments, I had no money,’ she told The Mirror.
It was around this time, in 2017, that The Vivienne made the decision to move to Gran Canaria after first getting hooked on drugs while working in Liverpool’s club scene.
‘Some guys I knew from Gran Canaria… asked me to do a gig in Pride,’ she recalled.
‘I did it, I was there for a week, and I felt like myself and I hadn’t touched anything for a week.’
After seeking help from a NHS centre in Liverpool, her move to Spain allowed her to take a step back from the habits that had taken over her life in the UK – and that had left doctors increasingly worried about her health.
Kevin Kirby, the manager of the Liverpool venue, Superstar Boudoir, where The Vivienne worked, said he was aware of her drug problems, but it never affected her work.
She suffered a fall last week, but dusted herself off (Picture: Matt Frost/ITV/Shutterstock)
While he ‘didn’t want her to go’ when she announced she was moving abroad, he ‘respected the reasons why she was going’.
‘She had to leave the scene at the time when she did otherwise she wouldn’t have been where she is now,’ he added.
‘She took a massive pay cut to go over there, was able to sort herself out and there’s been no stopping her since.’
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Although the drag star suffered a tumble during the group solo number on Dancing on Ice last week, she picked herself up and dusted herself off, continuing with the skate.
This weekend The Vivienne will go up against Nile Wilson and Joey Essex in the grand final, with one last chance to impress the judges to take out the title.
Dancing On Ice airs on Sunday at 6:30pm on ITV.
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