Andie MacDowell: 'Cocaine almost ended my career before it began'

Andie MacDowell almost quit modelling before finding fame due to her bad experiences with cocaine.

The Four Weddings and a Funeral star moved to New York in 1979 to become a model, before launching her acting career in the mid-1980s.

However, she almost quit and returned home to South Carolina, as she couldn't deal with the drug-fuelled lifestyle.

"There was a lot of cocaine around," she tells The Guardian. "I had a small experience at the very beginning and hated it. I hated it! It was only, like, a month. I really didn't like the way it felt. It didn't make me feel good and I couldn't sleep. I actually went into my agency and said I wanted to go home, and they said: 'You need new friends. You're around the wrong people.'"

However, the boss of her agency Elite Models, John Casablancas, flew her to Paris, France and introduced her to the late Moet & Chandon champagne heir Olivier Chandon de Brailles.

Explaining how they met, she says: "This young man showed up at the agency who didn't drink, smoke or do drugs, and it was like, I had a boyfriend."

The pair embarked on a romance, which Andie says was vital to her career - as it kept her happy while working.

"I don't know if they prearranged the whole thing, but it sure did work out well for me. I started working non-stop and my whole life opened up," the 61-year-old explains. "I was about to go home for a few seconds there."

Confessing it is the first time she has revealed she has done drugs, the actress adds: "I've never told anybody that story so please don't make it sound like I was a big druggy because I really wasn't."

Other than her early lapse, the star has abided by healthy lifestyle, as her mother Pauline died of a heart attack when Andie was just 23, having battled alcoholism.