„I loved cocaine. I never took a lot, just a little at parties“, says Helen Mirren. The actress, who is now 81 years old, admits that she used the drug for pleasure, but stopped in the early 80s.
The reason was related to Klaus Barbie – the Nazi war criminal known as the „Butcher of Lyon“. Mirren learned that after World War II he had been hiding in South America and had financed his life by trafficking cocaine.
“When you take a drug at a party, you just don't think about where it came from. I would never touch that drug again. You have to be aware of the path it took to get to you“, Helen Mirren says today.
Her story is part of an interview with GQ magazine. The actress's cocaine use and decision to give it up was also written about in the “Guardian“, which quoted her earlier words.
Mirren also talks about the only time she took LSD. This happened when she was 20 years old. In her autobiography “In the Frame“ it includes a photo from that period of her rolling around in a forest clearing under the influence of the drug.
“I had the most wonderful, magical experience and then I said to myself: I'll never do it again“, the actress recalls. According to her, the effect was so strong that she immediately understood that this substance should not be experimented with.
Miron adds that, like many other people of her generation, she used marijuana and “everything else“, but her profession always came first. “It was my last drug“, she says.
In her recent interviews, the actress has spoken more often about aging and how she accepts the changes in her life. She told Allure that she finds everything about being 80 wonderful.
“Hell, I'm alive, I work, I can have a glass of wine, I can put on makeup, I can listen to music, I can watch a beautiful sunset and go to the theater. I can live my life. It's wonderful,“ says Helen Mirren.
Helen Mirren won an “Oscar“ in 2007 for her role as Queen Elizabeth II in the film “The Queen“. She later recounted meeting the late Queen at the Ascot horse races. Elizabeth II introduced her to a sheikh as “the person who played me in the movie“, but he apparently didn't understand who she was talking about.
Mirren also recalls another awkward moment from the tea date. The milk was on the other side of Prince Philip, but the actress couldn't decide how to approach him to ask him to hand it to her. In the end, she drank the tea without milk.