Profile: Danniella Westbrook
Don’t stare at her nose! That’s all that was running through my head as I prepared to chat with British actress Danniella Westbrook. It’s not often I’ve had to mentally prepare to avoid a social faux pas, but I’m sure I wasn’t alone with this one.
The child model turned actress was born in Walthamstow to a cab driver and a shop assistant and was brought up in Essex. Her parents supported their daughter’s ambitions by allowing her to attend the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School, and she found fame aged 16 playing Sam Mitchell in EastEnders, a role she would revisit intermittently for the next 20 years. She featured in many prominent storylines with her onscreen brothers, thugs Grant and Phil Mitchell, but it wasn’t this that made the headlines.
During the mid-90s Westbrook developed a severe cocaine habit, epitomised by pictures published in the press where it was evident that her nasal septum had been completely eroded. With grisly pleasure, the tabloids rejoiced in documenting the life of a young woman spiralling out of control. Pictures of Westbrook falling out of nightclubs and lying in gutters became standard gossip mag fodder. So in 2012, when she gave an exclusive interview to a British tabloid detailing her conversion to Christianity and newfound love for clean living, almost everyone did a double take. Of all the people to find God and turn their life around, she just seemed so unlikely.
So how did it all come about? My journey to find out was a somewhat arduous one. If her agent is to be believed, Westbook is a hard woman to pin down these days. The release of her new book, which openly documents her drug abuse and a gang rape as well as her conversion, has resulted in her becoming a born-again celebrity in high demand. After this difficulty, together with detailed requests for the provision of transport and a make-up artist (we were filming), I began to wonder what kind of person I would eventually meet.
The reality was a very petite individual, who arrived with no entourage and a very humble, relaxed and warm manner. She wore a crucifix and had the Bible verse Isaiah 54:17 tattooed on her wrist. ‘I always feel – especially coming from a working class background and being in the public eye – people judge, judge, judge and they use judgement as a weapon against people, to make them feel terrible about themselves,’ she explains. ‘So, for me [the verse says] “God’s there for you and no weapon formed against you shall prosper”. So that’s the Bible verse for me.’
