"I knew if I walked away she wouldn’t have made it.”
Michelle Heaton's husband Hugh Hanley has opened up about his wife's former cocaine addiction.
The businessman got honest about the fear of losing his wife and the worry that his children could potentially grow up without a mother.
Michelle has just marked 90 days of sobriety, which is a major milestone for the former singer. She received treatment for drug and alcohol addiction at the Priory, but has since returned to her family home.
The couple, who have two children together, said it was an unbearably hard time for their family.
Speaking to
OK!, Hugh said he never realised just how bad her addiction was until one of her doctors contacted him. He wasn't even aware of her cocaine use.
"The first I really knew of it was when the doctor from the Priory called me. It was day two she was in there and he said she was really bad. He wasn't sure how well she would recover as it was so bad. Then he said she was being treated for cocaine and alcohol addiction," the dad explained.
"I was caught completely off guard on that," Hugh admitted.
"That was probably the most hurtful thing of this whole process."
He said he was aware of her drinking habits, but was in the dark about the drug use.
The former Liberty X singer said she wanted her husband to leave because she didn't want him to go through losing her. Heaton had started to lose her hair and was vomiting all the time. She said she thought she was going to die when she was at rock bottom.
"I begged him to leave," she said.
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Hugh shared: "For me, the hardest part was watching her getting ripped apart in front of me, and no matter what I would say or do, or what the kids would do, she was in self-destruct mode. I knew if I walked away she wouldn’t have made it.”
“I didn’t want the kids to grow up without their mother” he confessed.
Michelle said she understands that her addiction is something she will have to cope with for the rest of her life. The mum-of-two said she is taking things day by day at the moment.
Hugh recently praised Michelle's bravery in a moving post on Instagram.
"You are braver than you believe , stronger then you seem , smarter then you think and loved more then you know... If I could give you one thing in life I would give you the ability to see yourself through my eyes... Only then would you realise how special you are to me."
Michelle and Hugh are parents to nine-year-old Faith and seven-year-old AJ.
