Naomi Campbell says mop duty taught her a lesson
Naomi Campbell arrives at a Department of Sanitation facility in New York March 22, 2007. [Reuters]
Supermodel Naomi Campbell says her recent stint mopping floors and cleaning toilets at a New York garbage depot taught her a lesson and strengthened her resolve to stay away from drugs and alcohol.
In a diary, Campbell said she found solace in sweeping during the five-day community service sentence imposed after she pleaded guilty to reckless assault for throwing a mobile phone at her maid during a dispute over a pair of jeans.
"I have no other responsibility. I have no phone. I have the time to think. Just have, you know, peace," wrote the London-born model in diary excerpts published by the New York Post on Monday. The Post cited W Magazine as the source for the excerpts. The magazine is to publish the diaries next week.
Campbell, 36, who showed up daily for duty in a range post of designer outfits, wrote of bonding with her fellow workers, one of whom told her that alcohol had caused his downfall.
"I bond with him and I tell him I'm in recovery," wrote Campbell, who laments that she started taking drugs when she was 23.
"I first sought treatment for my addictions in 1999 and then went in and out of recovery. I'd be OK for a couple years and think I had things under control but then I would relapse.
"Some people can handle a drink or a line of cocaine but I've finally come to realize that, for me, it's all or nothing -- and it has to be nothing. And my life has changed since."
Campbell had admitted to drug use in the past. In 2004 she won a British court battle with a tabloid newspaper that was found to have invaded her privacy by running a story saying, correctly, that she had visited Narcotics Anonymous.
Over the years Campbell has been accused by at least three employees of assault. She has blamed her temper on lingering resentment of her father who abandoned her as a child.
In her New York diary. Campbell said her mother had now agreed to go to therapy with her.
"It's something I've wanted for a long time but haven't started because now I need to get myself on the right path first," she said.
By the final day of her week's community service, Campbell says she has taken pride in her work and felt "like I've paid my debt to society."
Campbell was the second celebrity sentenced to clean-up duty in New York. Singer Boy George, also British-born, was ordered to sweep streets for five days as punishment for drug possession and falsely reporting a burglary.
"I'm not proud of what I did, but it's something I definitely learned from. Now I have to get on with my life, keep working on my problems and go to meetings every day," wrote Campbell.
