Ex-Corrie star Denise Welch admits cocaine abuse

Ex-Corrie star Denise Welch admits cocaine abuse
Ex-Corrie star Denise Welch admits cocaine abuse (Image credit: PA Wire/Press Association Images)

Former Coronation Street star Denise Welch has revealed she snorted cocaine in between filming scenes for the soap. Denise, who played pub landlady Natalie Barnes, described leaving the set to score from a dealer and admitted driving under the influence of drugs. The 51-year-old Loose Women panellist made the confession in her autobiography, Pulling Myself Together, which is being serialised in the Daily Mirror. Denise said she began taking cocaine in nightclubs in her 20s but went on to become a regular user while suffering depression after the birth of her eldest son in 1989. She said: "I'd reached a point where I felt taking cocaine was the only way I could survive. "I was suffering crippling depression and I'd made myself believe coke was the only thing that could make me cope. "In fact I was locked in a vicious circle because the more I took, the worse the comedowns would be. I was sinking deeper and deeper." Denise, who went on to star in Waterloo Road, said she kicked the habit when she became pregnant with her second son Louis, who is now nine. Click here to watch whatsontv.co.uk's weekly soaps video preview, the Soap Scoop

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.