Olivia Newton-John’s daughter Chloe Lattanzi has broken her silence and revealed all about her horrific eating disorder and destructive drug addiction.
The 27-year-old musician and daughter of Australia’s sweetheart andGreasesuperstar has been pictured in the headlines over the years looking skeletal thin, as rumours ran rampant about her battle with anorexia and her party-girl antics.
Fresh out of a seven-month stint in rehab, the young aspiring singer has given a tell-all interview to UK’sDaily Mail,revealing the true extent of her drug and food battle, her relationship with her squeaky-clean celebrity mother, her struggle with anxiety and the perils of fame.
“Fame totally messes you up. I don’t blame my mother for my problems, but I would never want to be famous or raise a child of my own around the cult of celebrity. It ruins lives,” says Chloe.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it is that you can’t be fragile in this business or you end up like Lindsay Lohan.
“That’s not meant as an insult. I know she – and a lot of celebrities and celebrities’ kids – are struggling with demons and addictions, just like me, and not all of them are brave enough to address them. It’s disturbing that everyone wants to be famous these days. Our culture is sick.”
Chloe’s relationship with her mother has been tumultuous, with accusations flying that Olivia was burying her head in the sand and failing to recognise her daughter’s pleas for help.
“Eventually she faced up to it and sent me to a treatment centre for my eating disorder when I was 18,” Chloe said.
“It didn’t help at all. Putting people with eating disorders together is the worst thing you can do. It creates competition. I left and slowly got better on my own. But then I replaced one addiction with another.”
Growing up under the celebrity shadow of her sweet-as-pie mother certainly didn’t help the aspiring actress with her anxiety; feeling lumped with an insurmountable amount of pressure to live up to her mother’s fame.
“I watchedGreasefor the first time when I was 8 and I just remember saying, ‘Wow, that’s my mum!’” Chloe says.
“She was so pretty and I was just in awe of how great she was in that movie. It became obvious to me why everyone loved her so much – she was so lovely and perfect for the role of the heroine, Sandy.
“I even memorised some of the lines from Sandy’s scenes, which always gave my mum a good laugh.”
But her admiration quickly turned to turmoil when she started to realise the cost of her mother’s high-profile lifestyle.
“Later I would become sickened by the phoniness all around. I was aware my mother was different and resented people who tried to take advantage of her,” Chloe says.
“Then, when I got my record deal, I felt overwhelmed at being observed all the time.
“That, combined with a predisposition for depression and anxiety, was a recipe for disaster.”
At the worst of her eating disorder, the teen star weighed a meagre 42kg.
“My eating disorder started when I was 15 and carried on until my early 20s. I had anxiety attacks and needed to find a way of feeling in control of something. Food was the one thing I could be in control of,” Chloe says.
It wasn’t until the budding singer began taking drugs, spending $140 a day on cocaine and washing it down with a bottle of vodka, that her life began spiralling out of control.
“I never developed any tools for coping with my emotions. The only way I knew how to deal with emotional stress was through self-harm. That’s why I started doing drugs and drinking,” she says.
“The first time I tried cocaine I felt such relief. It took my anxiety away.
“I got to the stage where the first thing I did each morning was to do cocaine. I was drinking and partying and going crazy.”
Chloe hid her drug and eating disorder from parents for a long time but at the height of it, was high in front of them. Taking Xanax, along with the other cocktails of drugs, bingeing for three days with no sleep and blacking out, she finally crashed and hit rock bottom in September last year and turned to her mother for the help she needed.
“After a year of bottled-up pain, I just released my demons and one day told my mum everything I was going through. For hours I just cried in Mum’s arms and told her over and over, ‘I can’t take this anymore. I can’t stand living in this pain.’ I told her how out of control my drug and alcohol addictions had become,” Chloe says.
“Despite how painful the circumstances were, I felt so lucky to have someone like my mum with me to lean on and cry with.
“The next morning, she put me in the car and drove me to rehab. On the ride over I was shaking and sobbing, but Mum held my hand, put on a brave face and assured me everything was going to be all right. She said she was proud of me and at that time that’s really all I needed to hear.”
Related video: Remembering ‘Grease’ with Olivia Newton-John.
