The first time I got really, really drunk, I was 14, visiting home for the weekend from boarding school and spending time with my boyfriend who was at another school. It was still early days so when he invited me to a party, I was happy but also nervous as I wanted to make a good impression on all of his friends.
There were a few adults around, but we were left to our own devices and there was a lot of wine at dinner. I had all the best intentions and wanted to try to be the perfect girlfriend, so I didn’t say no when my boyfriend’s friend kept topping up my glass – not even when I was starting to feel tipsy. Instead I told myself, ‘I’ll be fine, I drink wine at home, I’m mature’. I didn’t want to cause a scene.
I realised things had gone drastically wrong when I got up from the dinner table and promptly threw up everywhere.
Instead of being the cool girl like I’d planned, I was the totally wasted girl.
While waiting for my parents to arrive after projectile vomiting all over the house, I passed out. The next thing I remember is waking up and being really confused about how I’d ended up in a bedroom, which was quickly followed by the realisation there was a boy on top of me who wasn’t my boyfriend but the friend who had been refilling my glass all evening.
Even through my drunken stupor, my instinct was to get him off me. As I started to push back, I noticed my shirt was open and my bra and jeans were undone. I finally managed to break free as he muttered horrible comments at me, and I hurriedly got myself together in a panic and rushed out of the room.
Millie Mackintosh writes that drinking until she blacked out became normal
Even though he was the one who had violated a young, unconscious girl, the first thing I remember feeling was shame.
I instantly thought: ‘Oh God, what have I done? This must be my fault.’
I felt really embarrassed and anxious that I’d messed up my relationship with my boyfriend, while also shocked that someone could touch me intimately without my permission. I didn’t get a chance to tell my boyfriend what had happened because he dumped me by text and blocked my calls.
Looking back, I wish I felt I could have confided in my parents. But how does a 14-year-old girl talk about what happened to her when she isn’t able to make sense of it herself?
I think the most upsetting part about that night is that for a long time I believed I was to blame for the situation that unfolded. With hindsight, I can see that I’d had too much to drink to be able to recognise it was sexual assault. It’s only in recent years during therapy that I’ve been able to correctly label what happened that night, be kind to my younger self and let go of the shame I carried for decades.
That was my first experience of drinking to blackout, and I didn’t talk to anyone about it. I wish I could go back to that moment and tell that young girl: ‘Nothing that happened is your fault.’
But instead I lived with this extra layer of secret shame and guilt for many years after that night. It was one of the triggers that led me to using alcohol as a crutch. I wanted to feel numb, to feel nothing.
School was also a traumatic experience. I was being bullied badly, having moved a few times before finally joining an all- girls boarding school in the middle of the term when friendship groups had already been formed. The constant taunts, teasing and pranks – some humiliating, some physical, all devastating – completely destroyed the small glimmers of confidence that I’d had when I arrived. And so began the cycle of instant gratification via boys and booze. The only way I could fit in with the popular crew was by pretending to be fine with their nastiness, and of course partying – which meant binge drinking every weekend. I set myself up as the wild one, to receive the validation and attention I so desperately wanted.
Living in a big city allowed me to party every night of the week, no lessons learned
Millie clings on to Hugo Taylor after heavy boozing session in Monaco in 2016
Other girls would egg me on to do stupid things for their own amusement – overtly sexy dancing, downing bottles of alcohol, hooking up with boys I’d just met.
I would take up their initiation challenges, hoping if I passed them, they’d let me into the cool crowd. Unfortunately this never happened, instead it was slut-shaming and name-calling – even though they were the ones who had given me the ideas and encouraged my bad, drunk behaviour in the first place.
Drinking until I blacked out became normal for me. I became a bad drunk; I thought it was who I was.
At 18, I moved to London to pursue a career as a make-up artist. At school, I only drank on the weekends, but living in a big city allowed me to party every night of the week, no lessons learned.
The main thing I remember from those days is the extreme partying. My friends and I would start with vodka tonics at home and then aim to get through the night without paying for any drinks. We would party till daylight, coming home on the Tube still in our short dresses and heels, with smudged make-up, while other people were heading out to work.
Yet, somehow, my friends’ hangovers were never as severe as mine – I’d get the shakes, throw up and have crippling anxiety. I would cope with a hangover by drinking again. Being on the constant party train and not wanting to miss out, I’d force myself to neck five drinks in a row so that I’d feel OK again. Once I’d reached a certain level of drunk, the pain would diminish, and off I would go again.
As soon as I had one drink, I wanted a hundred. I didn’t acknowledge any of this as a red flag at the time – I convinced myself I was in my Sex And The City era.
When I look back now, I am gutted for the young woman who gave away so much of her agency so easily. I let men control me, alcohol control me, friends who were never really friends control me, peer pressure to be seen a certain way control me. To feel wanted and validated I would put myself in stupid situations with men night after night. All I really wanted was to be loved. But each sexual encounter led nowhere and didn’t give me the love or intimacy I craved – leaving me feeling even emptier. So empty that I used booze to fill the emotional void.
On her wedding day to ex-husband Professor Green in 2013
Alongside her Made in Chelsea co-stars. Millie landed the role when she was 21 years old
My partying went up another notch and the dark moments started to become more frequent. And yet it was in the midst of all this turmoil and angst that fame beckoned – and my life became even more of a rollercoaster.
I was 21 when I landed a part in Made in Chelsea. I thought fame and attention could boost my battered self-esteem and restore my missing self-confidence. And it’s true that the show gave me some wonderful memories – real pinch-me moments – that I still cherish.
Yet fame did the opposite of what I’d hoped it would. When the first series aired, we had Monday night screenings where the cast and crew would all meet up to find out what footage had made it into the episode. I was always incredibly nervous and would sit in the room quietly downing wine and watching as the tweets flooded in.
Many of the posts were lovely… and lots of them weren’t. This was my first taste of trolling, which hit me hard because I tried to be true to myself when we filmed. What viewers were commenting on – what they loved or hated – was the real me. Yes, some of the storylines were slightly fabricated, but the things I went through on air were happening in my life.
The fact is, all the things that I thought would make me happy – designer clothes, star-studded parties, freebies and brand deals – didn’t. Not really. The bigger the show became and the more opportunities I was given, the more my anxiety grew.
I found myself in new, scarier, deeper waters and started to self-medicate with prescribed sedatives. I was suffering from crippling imposter syndrome and couldn’t stop thinking that everybody would realise I was still the awkward, uncool misfit I had always been. It felt easier for me to be a confident, cool girl when I was three drinks and a Xanax in.
During this time, I gave myself alcohol poisoning – twice. The first time was after a Christmas night out, when I was downing lots of different drinks on the back of a terrible hangover. The next day I felt so poisoned, so very sick, that I found myself Googling: ‘Can you die from a hangover?’ The second time was at a dinner hosted by a whisky brand. I can’t remember much of the night, but I haven’t been able to drink whisky since.
At 23, after two years of filming and feeling completely exposed, I had to escape Made in Chelsea, escape myself, escape the world I was wrapped up in. So, when my now ex-husband rang to ask me out I thought: ‘Why not?’
My date [rapper Professor Green] was in the public eye but involved in a different side of the entertainment industry, so being with him took me away from the life I felt stuck in and opened my mind to new things, new faces and new places. There were a lot of parties, festivals and events and I was hopeful for a new future.
With hindsight, however, I can see I was just running away. I got caught up in the thrill of a new relationship that offered the security, comfort and stability I was craving, but ultimately it would be detrimental to both of us. It didn’t help that our relationship was so quickly picked up, with the narrative of posh girl from Chelsea gets together with East End rapper. People were fascinated.
Before I knew it, we were engaged and planning a wedding. It happened too quickly. We were too young and I didn’t have a proper idea of what life with a recording artist would be like.
Although the idea of going to gigs seemed exciting, the reality was a lot more partying and destructive behaviour.
Our social life followed a pattern: a night out would start with a drink or two, then going for dinner with more drinks, then going out to a bar, then a club and on to an after-party, sometimes back at ours. I’d often wake up the next morning with people still in the house partying, while I skirted around them to make my hot water and lemon tea.
Love doesn’t conquer all and when you’re both in a destructive cycle, the outcome is only going to be a sad one. By the time I was 26, we had decided to go our separate ways and divorce.
I knew I wanted to try to keep a level head while going through the separation, so I didn’t drink for a few weeks – but all it meant was that I self-medicated with sedatives instead. My handbag would rattle with the sound of the prescription pills.
The problem is your tolerance increases the more you take, so after a while I didn’t experience the same relief. Instead, I began to take much higher doses than prescribed in order to cope with my emotions. Yes, I’d replaced drinking with highly addictive prescription pills.
By the time Millie was 26, the couple chose to divorce
With her Made in Chelsea co-star Caggie Dunlop
And my resolve not to drink didn’t last long, either.
It was a few months after my separation, and I was dating Hugo Taylor, with whom I’d had a relationship on Made in Chelsea in 2010. We were going to the 2016 Monaco Grand Prix and I was excited to be travelling with him and meeting friends there for what should have been an incredible long weekend for his 30th birthday.
A well-known fashion house had agreed to dress me for the trip and I knew I had to keep myself together and be presentable. I’d never been to a Grand Prix before, but I’d regulated my drinking – or so I believed – and I thought I had it under control.
What I hadn’t prepared myself for was the atmosphere down at the port, where we were staying on a yacht.
A wall of photographers would sit and wait to snap anyone walking down the pier and it felt like a hornet’s nest of noise and energy – the cars, the buzz, the crowds.
Suddenly aware that it was highly likely Hugo and I would be pictured together – we were a big story, reuniting after my separation from my soon-to-be ex-husband, and after our acrimonious split on Made in Chelsea – I became very anxious about what people would write and say.
So I did the exact opposite of what I should have done, and attempted to drown out the anxiety by binge drinking and taking Xanax.
On our second night we had a table at a lovely restaurant for dinner, but we had also been boozing since noon in the searing heat. All dressed up in my head-to-toe designer outfit, I drunkenly stumbled down the jetty right in front of the bank of photographers. I was too far gone to conceal just how wasted I was, and it was too late to do anything about it. The rest of the night was lost. I honestly didn’t know how bad it was – I was too drunk to even realise.
Waking up with a brutal hangover the next morning, from what I can only imagine was another six hours of drinking, I reached for my phone and saw that people had been sending messages and trying to call me, asking: ‘Are you okay?’
I was crippled by the fear of what I would find when I Googled my name. The pictures were all over the internet – me pouting, clinging on to Hugo, my hair a mess, barely able to stand up. I couldn’t bear to look at them. I wanted to be swallowed up by a huge hole, to sink into the floor.
I was so worried and ashamed about what my parents would think, I avoided speaking to them for weeks. Then, after the initial personal trauma sunk in, all the professional realisations started to dawn on me.
Would my management drop me? What about all the brands and opportunities that we were in talks with about future projects? And what about the fashion house who gave me my first big fashion nod by dressing me in Monaco? I had let them all down so terribly and, although they were gracious about it, they never worked with me again.
I knew I had to stop. I had to change and be honest with myself. This toxic cycle was threatening my chance of happiness, a healthy future and my professional life. I knew that. But it would be another six years before I could make it happen.
- Adapted from Bad Drunk by Millie Mackintosh (Piatkus, £18.99). © Millie Mackintosh 2025. To order a copy for £17.09 (offer valid to February 2; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937
