Katie Piper may have come across as strong lass following her horrific acid attack but, deep down, she endured moments of pure pain.
The brave star, who had acid thrown in her face by an ex in 2008, appeared on Loose Women with her mum Diane to mark this weekend’s Mother’s Day.
During their chat, Diane opened up about the time shortly after Katie’s attack when her daughter felt so low about her situation she asked her to kill her.
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Diane explained that a desperate Katie, devastated by her physical appearance at the time, begged for someone to help put her out of her misery.
“It was absolutely horrific, I never even recognised her,” Diane said, when she first saw her in a coma after the acid attack had taken place.
“The face was unrecognisable. We kept saying, ‘Are you sure? Are you sure?’”
But if seeing her disfigured daughter lying in an induced coma wasn’t bad enough, things would get a lot worse for Mum when Katie came to and she pleaded to be killed.
Diane explained that once she’d woken from her coma, Katie made it clear what she wanted to do: “She wasn’t speaking but she was writing messages like ‘what happened?’. One of the messages was ‘kill me’.”
It’s almost ten years since Katie was attacked. As a result, the TV star suffered horrific injuries and has endured years of surgery to rebuild her face.
At the time, she had been taken to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, where surgeons removed all the skin from her face and then rebuilt it with a skin substitute and then a skin graft.
Even a decade on Katie still has to regularly undergo medical procedures.
Speaking in a video on Instagram, Katie said: “So I just got in from work and wanted to make a video to show you this is something that happens when you’ve got injuries from the past near your eyes.
“Today I’ve come out in a really bad infection, I have a lot of antibiotic creams and stuff, my own little supply that I keep at home.
“So I’m going to treat it with some antibiotic cream and some drops, let me know if you have sensitive eyes or eye problems.
“This happens to me quite a lot but it usually clears up in a couple of days.”
Unsurprisingly, her followers deluged her with messages of support and shared their own stories of eye problems.
One wrote: “I get asked who would I most like to meet I always say you. Your inner strength is remarkable and an inspiration to us all.”
Another gushed: “You look incredible so pretty stunning beautiful lady , we love you xx.”
“Words cannot express how much you inspire people” another fan said. “Love everything you do. Reading your confidence book at the moment, so helpful and encouraging. Thank you.x”
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Meanwhile, Katie, who married Richard James Sutton and had a daughter called Belle, has revealed that her inspirational life story is being given the Hollywood treatment, admitting: “Somebody in America bought the film rights last year and they have renewed them this year.”