Designing Women star Delta Burke spoke out about her tough experience on the show.
The 67-year-old television star appeared as Suzanne Sugarbaker for five seasons in the mid-1980s before she departed.
Delta has recently spoken out and said the reason she left was due to pressure about her weight.
The star recently appeared on the Glamorous Trash podcast and opened up about her experience in the limelight.
Delta spoke to host Chelsea Devantez and revealed that she turned to crystal meth to shift the pounds.
The star attended acting school in London and was prescribed dieting pills only to realize they were illegal when she returned to the United States.
Delta revealed that she turned to “Black beauties,” during her time filming the sitcom Filthy Rich.
She used to “take them in the morning so [she wouldn’t] eat.”
“They were like medicine to me,” she added.
Eventually, Delta revealed she had built up a tolerance and a cast-mate suggested she tried methamphetamine.
“Nobody knew about crystal meth at the time,” she explained.
“[They said] ‘You chop it up. You snort.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to snort it.’ So I put it in cranberry juice and [drank] it and wouldn’t eat for five days.”
National Lampoon star, 72, has barely aged a day in 40 years since hit movie as she performs onstage at Patsy Cline tribute
Delta said others kept telling her she was too big and still gaining weight, but she regrets her negative thoughts.
“I now look back at those pictures and go, ‘I was a freaking goddess,'” she emphasized.
Filthy Rich ended in 1983 and Burke then went on to reach breakout success in 1986 with Designing Women.
INDUSTRY PRESSURE
Delta earned two Emmy nominations during her time on the sitcom.
The star said worries about her weight ultimately lead her to leave the show after she had to face “ugly narratives.”
“I thought I was stronger. I tried very hard to defend myself against lies and all the ugliness that was there and I wasn’t gonna win,” Delta said.
“I’m just an actress, you know. I don’t have any power.”
Delta recalled “on the set, when it got to be really bad, and I wasn’t handling it well with a smiling face, my whole body language changed. I would kind of hunch over. I just tried to disappear.”
“Hollywood will mess your head up. And I had always thought, ‘I want to be a famous actress.’
“I thought that meant that you would be a famous and well-respected actress, but that’s not what it meant. And the moment I became famous, it was like, ‘Oh no, no, no. This is not what I had in mind at all. I don’t think I want to be this anymore.’ But then it’s too late.”
QUIET LIFE
Following her departure from the show, Delta appeared in three other projects.
Delta appeared on a television show in the late 1990s called Women of the House and later another show named Any Day Now.
The actress also starred in a movie called What Women Want in 2000.
Since her last project, the star has remained out of the spotlight and focused on family life.
Delta married actor Gerald Lee McRaney in 1989 and the pair share three children, Jessica, Angus and Kate.