To this day, former EastEnders star Danniella Westbrook refuses to keep a mirror up in her house, unable to look at the face that was once her fortune.
It’s a quarter of a century since a paparazzi snap at a red carpet event revealed that she’d lost her septum, eaten away by cocaine addiction. In the years that followed, her face would further collapse as a result of her prodigious drug habit and related osteoporosis.
Multiple reconstructive surgeries – including using cartilage from one of her own ribs – failed, leaving the star languishing in the shallows of showbusiness.
Today however, another series of operations is set to restore Danniella’s drug-ravaged looks and with them, she hopes, her screen career. Tellingly, the 52-year-old actress has also just launched a talent agency whose clients, she pledges, will not pay the price of fame as she herself has done for decades.
A poster child of Noughties excess, Danniella has made mistakes but no one can say she hasn’t lived with the consequences.
‘I got rid of all my mirrors,’ she confirms. ‘I couldn’t look at myself. That’s how bad it got. The darkest part of this year was hitting a point where I said: “Everybody is right, I’m so ugly.”
‘I hated the way I looked and I couldn’t breathe properly. People were trolling me, abusing me, telling me how ugly I was, saying I was still a dirty coke head.
‘I told my family: “I can’t do this,” but now I’ve found a surgeon who has saved my life and my mental health. He is a miracle worker. I owe him so much.’
Danniella Westbrook in 2000. The actress’s nose was severely damaged by her cocaine use
Danniella during one of her many operations. She will fly to Dubai in the new year for another
In the new year Danniella will fly to Dubai for the next major surgery. She will then have to undergo a further two or three more minor procedures, as well as a full £45,000 neck and face lift. Her rehabilitation will take another two years, her surgeon Dr Parviz Sadigh has said.
It’s non-negotiable, since she is still suffering the devastating legacy of the cocaine addiction that came with teenage superstardom.
Danniella was just 16 when she burst onto British screens as Sam Mitchell, little sister to Phil and Grant Mitchell, in EastEnders in 1990.
Watched by audiences of 15million, she swiftly became a household name and gossip column fixture. But, having been introduced to cocaine aged just 14, she quickly fell into dependence. She is said to have been snorting 3g of the drug a day, spending £250,000 on it – and a further £500,000 trying to rebuild her face.
The grotesque pictures of the huge hole in her nose where her septum ought to have been were taken at the British Soap Awards in 2000. What should have been a triumphal night for Danniella, amid a parade of EastEnders stars, became a devastating denunciation of the young actress’s party lifestyle. Even today, the images exert a shocking power.
Speaking later about her darkest days, Danniella revealed she had been kidnapped and gang-raped by drug dealers and had begged to be sectioned after suicidal thoughts. She was so physically weakened that at one point she weighed just six and a half stone.
Although she successfully kicked her drug habit several times, once managing 12 years of sobriety while living in Los Angeles, she fell off the wagon in 2014. It was 2021 when she announced she was finally drug-free, after attending a clinic in Mijas, Spain.
While other female soap stars from her generation have gone on to forge stellar TV and movie careers – Sarah Lancashire, Suranne Jones, Jenna Coleman, Michelle Keegan and Anna Friel all began on British soaps such as Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Brookside – Danniella has seen many professional reversals because of her addiction.
The now 52-year-old played Samantha Mitchell in BBC soap opera EastEnders
She says she would return to the show if her character is killed off, to ‘finish’ what she ‘started’
Her CV is filled with reality TV, and smaller presenting roles, with appearances on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, Dancing On Ice and Celebrity Big Brother.
Earlier this year, filming what she hoped might be a comeback movie, ironically about county lines drugs gangs, she suffered respiratory difficulties on set. Rushed to hospital, Danniella spent three days on a breathing machine and her ‘gangster granny’ role was subsequently recast.
Horrifyingly, doctors discovered three new holes in her mouth, two of which were the same diameter as a 5p coin, the result of earlier botched repair surgery back in 2016. ‘They couldn’t believe it when they opened me up,’ she says ruefully.
‘The top of my mouth had started to recede and it had two holes, which were constantly leaking and corroded. Everything I was eating and drinking was going through them.
‘But the work on that went well, including a surgical lip revision for a cleft lip. My surgeon brought my top lip down and forward – those holes were pushing it back and curling my lip up.
‘And, where there is no structure at the end of my nose, it was just pushing up and under. That is why I couldn’t breathe, I was literally suffocating.’
She currently has 68 stitches in her mouth but is upbeat and focussing on this phase of her recovery, saying: ‘You can’t even tell!’
Two weeks on from the operation and the dressings have gone but her nose is still flat, far from its teenage shape.
She is now making a documentary about her long surgery journey, working with a TV production company and the police to investigate why and how cocaine has caused such damage to her face.
‘It will be good closure for me,’ she admits, while pledging: ‘I won’t be going near any drugs.’
Danniella’s other passion project is her new talent agency W.1 Elite, which has signed a stable of reality TV stars and influencers in readiness for a full launch early in the new year.
She founded it believing her 32 years of experience in the public eye mean she’s perfectly placed to promote and protect others.
‘There’s no care in management anymore, I wanted to change that,’ she says.
‘People are always asking me for advice about the industry so this is a natural progression for me. I don’t think there is enough help available to people in this industry. I’ve looked at all the things that were missing when I started, so there will be an accountant the clients can use and a therapist on call at all times.’
The actress poignantly adds: ‘I lost my dad when he was 75 so I might only have 25 years left in me. I want to make every one of them count.
‘I want a roster of clients who are credible and have longevity in the entertainment industry, and to leave a legacy for my kids. It is such a kick to start a business and watch it grow.’
Danniella is not currently in a relationship having split from her boxer boyfriend Chas Symonds in June. ‘I’m married to the business – that and focusing on myself,’ she says.
Despite the pair still being on good terms, she has battled severe depression and is taking anti-depressants.
She says her family has kept her going. ‘They have always been there, I was the one who wasn’t present.
‘I didn’t care enough before. I walked around like that for years, I thought I was invincible when in fact I was sick.’
She particularly credits the death of her father Andrew in 2024 with ‘pulling me back from the brink,’ and is grateful for the compassion shown by her sister, who briefly became a kind of unofficial carer for her.
She has also restored relations with her children. Danniella shares Kai, 28, with her former boyfriend, Robert Fernandez, and a daughter Jodie, 24, with her second husband, Kevin Jenkins. ‘I enjoy a better relationship with them both now, rather than them worrying about me constantly,’ she says.
With this new-found emotional stability and the promise of professional renewal on the back of her forthcoming surgeries, Danniella is determined to help other people tackle their alcohol and drug addiction.
‘I want to help people who are on drugs, but I won’t entertain people who are doing it in my friendship group. I’m too busy living.
‘I’ve been focusing on the documentary and showing what addiction can do to you. I’m proof you can come out the other side and rebuild your life and career no matter how big or small, that there is a life after drugs. That’s the message on my banner and I’ll keep waving it, if it helps other people stay alive.’
Above all, she is looking forward to finally having her face rebuilt.
‘I’ll look like I used to look, like I should look. When my face is done, I will return,’ she promises.
So would she ever go back to EastEnders, the show which first made her a star?
‘I’d go back if they killed me off,’ she says candidly. ‘I would finish the character that I started.’
For now though her real priority is her recovery – and that includes rehanging all the mirrors in her home, long since hidden in her utility room.
‘My mum said to me, “Can we get your mirrors out now?” and I replied: “Yeah, actually, we can. I feel great!”’