Naomi Campbell Admits Drug Downfall

By Todd Peterson

02/24/2005 at 08:00 AM EST

Cocaine nearly became Naomi Campbell's downfall, the supermodel tells Diane Sawyer during an interview on Primetime Live, which airs Thursday.

Campbell admits that she began using coke at age 24, but she tells Sawyer that she quit before "some self-destructive thing" happened, the Associated Press reports. During their discussion, Campbell says that she has recovered from her drug-using days and does not want to revisit that period of her life. "I don't want to be in that pain again," she says.

Still, Campbell says, she drew the line at using drugs before a show. "I never did drugs before I would go on the runway," she tells Sawyer. She knew that if she did so, Campbell says, people would have seen it in her eyes.

When British tabloid the Daily Mirror published pictures of Campbell leaving a drug counseling session, Campbell sued the newspaper, alleging that it violated her privacy by printing facts about her treatment, AP reports. She won the suit on appeal last year.

Campbell also dishes on her much talked about relationship with R&B superstar Usher, whom Campbell says she was not romantically involved with. "We were never boyfriend/girlfriend," Campbell says. She adds that all the speculation was one of the reasons Campbell scaled back their relationship.