BLACK EYED PEAS - FERGIE ENDURED DRUG-INDUCED HELL

FERGIE ENDURED DRUG-INDUCED HELL

BLACK EYED PEAS star FERGIE was once so distraught with her flagging music career she turned to drugs - and became schizophrenic. The singer - real name Stacy Ferguson - enjoyed moderate success in her teens with girl group Wild Orchid but fell into a deep depression when the trio disbanded. She says, "I started taking ecstasy. From there, I got into harder drugs and a bad place. I had chemically induced paranoid schizophrenia. "At one point I was sure the FBI were coming for me. I said, 'Okay, if you walk through that door and they're not out there, it's the drugs.'" But the 32-year-old eventually found an inner strength that helped her beat the habit: "A voice inside me said, 'Listen, you can kick this.' So I stopped."