'I Was Killing Myself': Naomi Campbell Reveals How Drugs and Alcohol Were Coping Mechanisms to 'Cover Up' Her Grief

The height of Naomi Campbell's career wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

In the new AppleTV+ docuseries The Super Models, the brunette beauty opened up about her struggle with substance abuse in the '90s, explaining how her drug and alcohol issues were connected to the intense grief she was dealing with.

"Grief has been a very strange thing in my life because it doesn't always [show]," Campbell said. "I go into a shock and freak out when it actually happens, and then later is when I break. But I kept the sadness inside, I just dealt with it."

During this time, a dear friend of Campbell's, Gianni Versace, was shot and killed on the front steps of his home on July 15, 1997.

"He was very sensitive to feeling me, like, he pushed me. He would push me to step outside and go further when I didn't think I had it within myself to do it. So, when he died, my grief became very bad," she explained of the famous fashion designer.

The 53-year-old said she would try to "cover up" her grief through substance abuse. "Addiction is such a – it's just a b------- thing, it really is," she added.

"You think, 'Oh, it's going to heal that wound.' It doesn't. It can cause such huge fear and anxiety. So I got really angry," the mother-of-two explained.

Campbell checked into a rehab facility in 1999 after she collapsed at a photoshoot due to her five-year cocaine addiction.

"When you try to cover something up, your feelings… I tried to cover that with something. You can't cover it. I was killing myself. It was very hurtful," she stated.

The model also faced abandonment issues throughout her childhood, which she attributed as a cause for her addiction.

"It does still come up sometimes. But I just now have the tools to deal with it now when it comes up," Campbell said. "I have to think of something outside of myself — something greater than myself."

As OK! previously reported, The Super Models docuseries not only shared the story of Campbell, but also featured fashion icons Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford.

Like Campbell, Evangelista also had a largely touching chat regarding the body modifications she has undergone to appear younger.

"It was such an emotional interview ... She was saying she deserved it and I was like, 'No, you don't deserve this.' But it was what she felt. She was just so honest about it," director Roger Ross Williams said of speaking with the 58-year-old.

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"It was like an emotional interview from beginning to end, we were crying all the time. I'm surprised we even got anything," Williams added.