I’m a Celebrity campers Rebekah Vardy, Stanley Johnson and Iain Lee have frank discussion about mental health

I’M A CELEBRITY… GET ME OUT OF HERE! star Rebekah Vardy told how she tried to take her own life as a teenager as she spoke about her struggles with mental health.

The mother-of-four, married to footballer Jamie Vardy, described her history with postnatal depression and told how talking about her experiences helped her to “overcome them”.

Her comments came during a conversation with Stanley Johnson and Iain Lee on Tuesday night’s episode of the ITV reality show, after Lee told how he had had “suicidal thoughts in the past”.

Vardy responded: “You draw from experience don’t you, I tried it when I was younger, when I was 14.”

Explaining why she did not seek help at the time, she continued: “When I was that age it was something that was pushed under the carpet and it had such a bad effect on me.

“I made such horrific decisions in life and I got to a point after I had my second child where it just hit me, and it does because you can’t run from it forever, and that is what I was doing.

“I had really bad postnatal depression with my second, it’s like Pandora’s box opens and when it opens you have to deal with it.

“It was a knock on effect after that. I had CBT therapy (cognitive behavioural therapy) which changes your brain’s thought process, I had counselling and I was on anti-depressants for a while.

“Then all of a sudden things just started getting better, because you learn to deal with things, and you need to talk, and talk helps you overcome so many things. It is so different now.”

While Johnson said it “broke his heart” to hear of her experience at a young age, Lee said: “The mind is a powerful tool. If you let it run away with itself, it will do.”

Sharing his hope that support would become more common for his children’s generation, he added: “I’m not proud that my head went that way, but it’s not a weakness.”

For help and support you can contact the Samaritans on 116 123 or head to their website.