White Dee was "vile" to her children in the run up to her attempted suicide.
The ‘Benefits Street’ star downed alcohol and swallowed numerous pills in a bid to kill herself on Easter Sunday in March and, although she now regrets trying to take her own life, she has admitted the way she treated her kids Caitlin, 18, and Gerrard, nine, in the days prior to the event was unforgivable.
Speaking on ‘Loose Women’ on Monday (10.10.16), she said as tears filled her eyes: "I wasn’t very nice. I was horrible. I was vile to my kids. I told them that I didn’t want them in my house and that they were killing me. I just snapped. How would they have been able to live with that?"
Although she appeared to be holding it together as she spoke about her beloved children, Dee – whose real name is Deirdre Kelly – broke down in tears when she recalled losing her own mother in 2012.
She explained as she thought about her own childhood: "I just thought I would save them some time. I thought they didn’t deserve a mother like me. You just feel so sorry for yourself. I couldn’t see what I had at the time."
Six months on from her attempted suicide, which she now believes is the "most stupid mistake" she’s ever made, Dee is finally getting her life back together.
She said: "A lot of things have changed in my life. I’m surrounded now but nothing but positive people and I think I’m at the right mindset – well not 100 per cent the right mindset – and I’m getting there."
Dee became a household name two years ago when she took part in ‘Benefits Street’, which sees residents in areas hit hard by the recession invite cameras into their homes to document their struggles, as many people felt they could relate to her in some way.
She then won the public over even more when she agreed to join the ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ house in August of 2014 but, despite the praise she got for her down-to-earth nature, she found herself out of work again shortly after her exit.