Skinny Billie: I ate tissues and punched myself to stay thin

Pop singer turned Doctor Who star Billie Piper has told of how she ate tissues and punched herself in the stomach to try and stay thin during her two year battle with anorexia.

Piper says she became anorexic after jibes from a fellow celebrity that she was 'fat'. She said: "I overheard a presenter saying I looked fat. I was gutted. No 16-year-old can hear a comment like that and not be diced by it.

"I went home – awardless – feeling less sure of myself than ever before. I didn't look as good as other artists or sound as good."

In her new autobiography she describes how her marriage to radio man Chris Evans, nearly twenty years her senior, saved her life and made her feel sexy again.

Piper describes how she looked "like Skeletor", and went for five days without eating, surviving on coffee, coke and cigarettes.

It was then she turned to tissues to kill her hunger pains: "I read about a girl who ate tissues to fill herself up, so I sat on the floor of my hotel room somewhere in America and tried to force Kleenex down my throat.

"But the tissue thing was b****cks. Not only was I still hungry, I nearly choked on a ball of tissue. "I was constantly watching the clock, waiting to tick off another hour without food.

"My life existed in minutes – it became all about me and time and calories." she says in the book, which has been published in the Daily Star.

She only began her road to recovery after starting her relationship with Evens because "he would never tolerate that sort of thing.

"I left it all behind. I couldn't be bothered with forcing myself to be something I wasn't any more. Namely a size zero.

"There were so many other things to try, to do, to see, to taste. I had been infected by Chris' appetite for life. The pounds piled on and I felt sexy – Chris made me feel sexy."