Supermodel Beverly Johnson Says She Got Hooked On Cocaine During “Only Eggs” Diet

Model/actress/singer Beverly Johnson, perhaps best known for being the first black model to appear on the cover of Vogue, recently revealed there was a price to pay for her rise to fame.

During an interview with PageSix, the now 71-year-old model talked about how she became addicted to drugs after living on a diet of cocaine, a bowl of rice and two eggs a week, in an attempt to remain stick-thin.

We were led to believe that cocaine was not addictive. We didn’t know cocaine was addictive. Everyone used drugs back in the day but that particular drug for models was used because we did not eat. I remember eating two eggs and a bowl of brown rice a week. I would be shaking in a cab, and I would say pull over because I have to get a bag of M&Ms. I would just stop and get the shakes. We did not eat, and every time you came to work they would say, ‘Yes! Chisel to the bone girl. Yes,’ like congratulating you.

Yikes. That sounds like a brutal experience. Can you imagine only eating two eggs and some brown rice a week? Not even a day, but a week? That’s like 500 calories a week!

Johnson says it was her mother who first discovered she needed help. Her mother reportedly got her out of the bathtub and made her look at herself in a “three-way mirror,” and Johnson remembers being shocked at how many bones were visible. “It was a major wake up call for me,” she admits.

Thankfully, she’s been sober for 50 years now and life is good. Just last year, she married financier Brian Maillian in Las Vegas.