Tina Malone has told how she hit rock bottom when friends, family and even a priest had to help her out financially.
The actress and reality star’s life went downhill after she was betrayed by two friends and arrested for cocaine possession in December 2017.
Two months later she was threatened with jail for sharing on Facebook a photo of James Bulger murderer Jon Venables – in defiance of a court order.
Skint and out of work, the 56-year-old former Shameless star sold her clothes and jewellery to feed her daughter Flame, five, and husband Paul, 37, who had also lost his job.
Her lowest point was five days before last Christmas when her priest visited her with an envelope of cash.
Tina recalled: “I felt like a lowlife. I borrowed money from everyone I knew. I cleaned my mother out.
“I ended up having two parties at home where I sold my designer clothes and jewellery to pay the rent.
“I made about £1,000 in total. I was desperate.
“It was the worst time of my life. My eldest girl Danielle was so disgusted she didn’t speak to me for 14 months.
“After the Venables thing, when we got the call from the solicitor telling us I could face six months in prison it was five days before Christmas.
"My priest came round and put an envelope on my table with money in. That’s how bad it was.”
After the drug arrest she lost her panto wages and was dropped from other jobs including a lucrative film contract in Los Angeles.
This March she was given an eight-month suspended sentence and fined £10,000 for being in contempt of court over the photo of killer Venables, who has a new identity since his release from jail.
Five months later Tina drifts around in a floaty designer frock and Jimmy Choo heels for our exclusive shoot to mark her comeback.
As she talks excitedly about celebrating her ninth wedding anniversary, it is hard to imagine 18 months ago her life was falling apart.
Then she speaks about pleading for handouts and how she repaid the priest’s kindness by volunteering at her local church in Liverpool on Christmas Day and the humility the experience taught her. And she breaks down.
She recalled: “I worked at St Mary’s Church and fed 90 people who were destitute, homeless, had addictions, learning difficulties, and I was there from 10am to 7pm.
“Paul and my mum and Flame came and joined us.
“It gives you perspective. One woman made me sob like a baby.
“She was 90 and had spent the last 15 Christmas Days on her own, she was in a wheelchair, that just broke my heart. I sat holding her hand.
“She just wanted someone to listen to her. It was incredible.”
Tina says her dark times have made her value the people around her who are loyal and decent.
When she was at rock bottom she contemplated suicide and even drew up a list of those who had betrayed her so she could call them out from beyond the grave.
She said: “I wrote letters to Paul, Danielle, Flame and one to my mother, and the person handling my estate, listing 24 people who were not to come crying at my funeral.
“And I said, ‘When I’m dead I want you to name these 24 people as part of what took me to this place to jump off this f***ing bridge.’ Nothing compared to how I felt then.
“I felt redundant, useless, I felt like a dirty, ugly piece of s**t and I thought they’re better off without me.
“One thing stopped me. The guilt over Flame. I went through IVF for her and she adores me. She’s bright, intelligent, kind, loving, very shy and reserved.
“She’s my girl and I just thought, ‘What kind of a person would I be to do this to a four-year-old?’”
Now Tina wants others to learn from her mistakes and be mindful of what they post on social media.
She said: “Girls aged in their teens, 20s and 30s have lost their way. We’ve spawned a society of young people who think you have to look a certain way. It’s phoney.”
Tina’s fortunes turned around after a chance meeting with TV producer Colin McKeown. She spent four hours sobbing on the floor in front of him and he cast her in Channel 5 drama Clink.
He gave her cash to get her hair and make-up done and swept her off to the Royal Television Society awards. Tina said it was tough standing on the red carpet again but her life has turned round and the public support has blown her away.
She said: “The phone hasn’t stopped. I did Clink, then Celebs on the Farm, and I’m doing my first play, Down Our Street, in New Brighton. I’m terrified. I’m singing. I make Sheridan Smith sound like Celine Dion. But I’m loving being back on set.”
After the Venables court case, Tina broke down in tears on TV as she told how she was too skint to take her daughter to Disneyland Paris – and ended up bagging a free holiday.
“People have been wonderful. I did an interview with This Morning after the £10,000 fine and a company rang me, a small travel service called Go West With Mickey,” she said.
“We hadn’t had a holiday for three years and when this posh lady Elspeth first rang me I thought it was a joke.
“We went to Disneyland Paris. The baby was waited on by princesses, in the best hotel, the best room, it was wonderful. Then all the planes were cancelled on the Friday we were due home. We didn’t even have a tenner. We were in the airport 4pm Friday and we flew home at 10.50pm on Sunday.
“I’m ringing people asking them to lend us £20. We’d gone from a glam holiday to sleeping in a Premier Lodge in a single bed with no food, I had a packet of crisps in my bag that I’d had for six days and that’s all we had to eat.
“I’m either a hundred pound overdrawn or I’ve got ten grand in the bank. Nothing is ever normal.
“But working with the homeless, the lonely, people with addictions, helping them on Christmas Day... You think you’ve got problems but it just doesn’t compare.”
While she says she put on weight during her depression, the 5ft-tall star slips easily into a size eight and poses in outfits women a third of her age would wear and chats about her new diet as she heartily tucks into a chicken sandwich and a plate of chips.
She says she would like to get down to seven and a half stone and later this year plans to share her slimming secrets.
She joked: “I’ve done every diet known to man before the gastric band, I’ve been to fat camps, been locked up, the only thing I’ve not done is have my jaw wired.
“Our problem with obesity isn’t down to education. It’s how much we eat, we all know broccoli is better for us than a Creme Egg. It’s everything in moderation.”
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