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Monday, 1 September 2008

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Dame Helen Mirren: Nazi criminal put me off cocaine

She didn't want to fund drugs baron Klaus Barbie

Dame Helen Mirren doesn't take drugs anymore

Dame Helen Mirren dabbled with drugs but quit when she learned it was funding the lifestyle of a wanted Nazi war criminal.

Klaus Barbie had been making money from cocaine while hiding out in South America in the 1980s.

‘I loved coke,’ she says. 'I never did a lot, just a little bit at parties. What ended it for me was when they caught Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyons, in the early 80s.

‘He was in South America and living off the proceeds as a cocaine baron. I never touched it again.

'I grasped the full horrifying structure of what brings coke to our parties in Britain.’

Dame Helen, 63, also says she stopped experimenting with cannabis and LSD because of the side effects.

‘I hated marijuana,’ she tells GQ. ‘It made me paranoid and unhappy. I woke up one day and thought, no more.’