Billie Piper

Profession: Actress
Place/Date of Birth: Swindon, England, 22 September 1982
Associated with: Chris Evans

"You don’t have to take it all on board, you just take what you want from it.

"I’ve been all right for about two years now. I feel like I’m slowly getting over it, but it takes ages."

Billie Piper ate tissues - Oct 2, 2006
Billie Piper ate tissues while in the grip of anorexia, she has revealed.

The Doctor Who star, 24, was a young pop star when she fell victim to the dangerous eating disorder.

"I’d cut everything out and see how long I could go before I had to eat," she is reported as saying in the Daily Mirror.

"At one point, I managed five days."

And rather than let food pass her lips, she attempted to stop her hunger pangs another way.

She said: "I read about a girl who ate tissues to fill herself up, so once I tried to force Kleenex down my throat.

"But not only was I still hungry, I nearly choked on a ball of tissue."

Billie came to fame at just 15 as the face of the magazine Smash Hits, before going on to have seven hits in the top five.

She has since reinvented herself as an in-demand actress and releases Growing Pains, her autobiography, later this month.

Actress Billie contemplated suicide - Sept 24, 2006
Actress Billie Piper has revealed that she once contemplated suicide.

The 24-year-old former Doctor Who star tells how she came close to taking an overdose when she was alone in a hotel room in Chicago in 1999. But at the last minute she sought her parents’ help instead, phoning them.

In her autobiography Growing Pains, Billie also reveals she was anorexic for two years, between the ages of 16, when she was a year into her brief pop career, and 18, when she married TV presenter Chris Evans.

The actress became so thin she stopped menstruating, and a chapter describes her addiction to laxatives.

Billie said that previously she felt unable to discuss living with an eating disorder.

"I didn’t feel qualified or ready to talk about it until I was really, really well, this year," she told the Mail on Sunday’s You magazine. "I didn’t want to say ’Oh poor me,’ and be known for that, and then start losing weight again..."

The actress also said she felt wary of encouraging other young girls to copy her.

Evans was instrumental in her recovery from anorexia. "I couldn’t have not eaten when I started seeing Chris," she told the magazine. "It’s impossible not to enjoy life when you’re with him."

In her book, Billie reveals that she has been driven by an insatiable work ethic since the age of 12 - when she won a place at the Sylvia Young Theatre School in North London. She went on to work 18-hour days by the time she was a pop star aged 15, taking her away from her family in Swindon.

She said the worst moment came when, alone, she contemplated suicide in a Chicago hotel room. At the last minute she phoned her parents, begging to be allowed to come home.

Billie set for Mansfield Park - August 29, 2006
Billie Piper has been snapped up to star in an ITV adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic Mansfield Park. The Doctor Who stunner will play heroine Fanny Price in the new drama, which has been penned by Maggie Wadey. Fanny is a timid poor girl who inspires the wealthy family she lives with to indulge in inappropriate relationships and desires.

Billie’s acting career has gone from strength to strength since she starred in BBC drama The Canterbury Tales. Her role as Rose Tyler in Doctor Who has since gained her even more fans and critical acclaim.

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Biography

Billie Piper was born September 22 1982 and propelled into stardom at the young age of 15.

Her fame began when she became the youngest female solo artist ever to debut at number one in the UK charts, with the feisty ’Because We Want To’ in the summer of 1998. Three months later she repeated the feat with the follow-up ’Girlfriend’, a slower R&B-tingle tune, which proved that this was one pop baby who could sing. In October 1998, the platinum-selling album ’Honey To The B’ took Billie’s career a step on and silenced the cynics who had said her success was sure to be short lived.

Throughout 1999 she took a step out of the limelight to work on her second album, whilst playing house with Five singer Ritchie Neville. Then in early 2000 Billie made her comeback with the single ’Day & Night’, an up-tempo song that hit the top of the charts.

Accompanying this comeback was a total image overhaul that offered up a far raunchy and overtly sexy individual. However, still in her late teens, the new image created quite a lot of press, and not all of it good, launching the debate as to whether it was suitable for young girls to copy her style.

Billie’s rock’n’roll lifestyle continued at great apace with a stalker, suspected drugs issues and her eventual marriage to, 16 years her senior, Chris Evans. The relationship that followed saw Billie’s demise from the public eye and the couple became more famous for their extreme partying, which as well as costing Chris his job at Virgin, also saw Billie flounder about with seemingly not much to do other than get drunk.

In 2003 she returned to her roots and polished her acting skills in the sunny climes of Los Angeles. On her return to the UK she quickly earned roles in television and film productions, her first being The Canterbury Tales that stunned viewers and changed their perception of her from a young pop princess to that of professional actress.

She later appeared in The Calcium Kid, Spirit Trap, Much Ado About Nothing, The Ruby in the Smoke and Mansfield Park, however it was her character Rose Tyler that awarded her the most acclaim.

In 2004 Billie signed to work on the new series of Doctor Who, as sidekick and companion of the good Doctor. She won Most Popular Actress category 2005 and 2006 for her work on the series, alongside Best Actress at the TV Quick and TV Choice Awards 2006 and Breakthrough Award at the Southbank Show Awards 2006, however on June 15, 2006, it was announced by the BBC that she was to depart in the final episode of the second series.

In October 2004 Billie and Chris began a trial separation that was to end in divorce, however the couple remain close friends, living just two houses away in the desirable Belsize Park area on London.

read more on Chris Evans

March 2008