Piper admits considering suicide

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Billie Piper contemplated suicide owing to the pressures of being a teenage pop star, the actress has revealed.

She considered a drug overdose while alone in a US hotel room, aged 16, before phoning her parents to ask to come home, she told the Mail on Sunday.

The 24-year-old former Doctor Who star also admitted suffering anorexia from 16 to 18, and again two years ago after her marriage to Chris Evans ended.

But she said she was "really happy now" and no longer weighed herself.

"I didn't feel qualified or ready to talk about it until I was really, really well, this year," Piper told the Mail on Sunday's You magazine.

The Swindon-born performer was 15 when she found fame as a pop star, enjoying two number one singles and other hits before turning to acting.

She played sidekick Rose Tyler in two series of BBC One's Doctor Who, and is to be seen in a forthcoming BBC adaptation of Philip Pullman's Victorian thriller The Ruby in the Smoke.