In a new interview, the actress credits her husband Hugh Hanley with supporting her through the ordeal, as well as standing by her in her battle with drug and alcohol abuse.
- Jul 8, 2022
AceShowbiz - Michelle Heaton found her libido was "massively lacking" after she went through early menopause. Having undergone a hysterectomy and a double mastectomy following a discovery that she was carrying the BRCA2 gene which can cause cancer, the Liberty X star was plunged into menopause at the age of just 34 which left her in need of hormone replacement therapy (HRT).
"When going through menopause, I found my libido was massively lacking and I had no energy to do anything. I had no 'oomph,' " she told New! magazine. "So my GP recommended testosterone and oestrogen, and yes it might have given me a couple more hairs on my chin, but it completely changed my life."
The now-42-year-old star explained going through such a huge hormonal change with the menopause left her miserable as she struggled to talk about what she was going through. She credits her husband Hugh Hanley with supporting her through the ordeal, as well as standing by her in her battle with drug and alcohol abuse which led to a stint in rehab in 2021.
The singer added, "Throughout everything that happened to me, Hugh was as lost as I was. It's only been in the last year or so that we've felt like our old selves again. Through the marriage, careers, kids, menopause, drinking, we've had our highs and lows but he's absolutely always been my rock. We can only go up from here."
The couple married in 2010 and they are parents to two kids, 10-year-old Faith and 8-year-old AJ. Michelle previously admitted she felt like a "bad mother" when she was struggling with addiction. She said, "I felt like a bad mother - the worst. I'm so lucky I've got two beautiful children."
"They just want to see mummy well and they want to have 'fun mummy'. They want me to play football with them, they want me to do their hair. It was those simple things that I wasn't able to give them," she recalled. "I never put them at risk in a physical way, but they saw me being sick and were worried about mummy and wondering why she shouted. And my husband wondered if I'd be alive when he woke up."
