Billie Piper describes 'reckless' marriage with Chris Evans

Before making a recent TV appearance where she said she smoked with The Spice Girls at 15 and stole things from the sets of Secret Diary of a Call Girl and Doctor Who, Billie Piper lifted the lid on her 'reckless' marriage with Chris Evans.

She recently appeared on an episode of The Jonathan Ross Show, where she said The Spice Girls gave her cigarettes to smoke with them when she was 15-years-old.

Billie said she also keeps things from sets she has filmed on and has a whip and underwear from Secret Diary of a Call Girl, where she played a sex worker, and Doctor Who where she stole the main central console from the Tardis.

But on a podcast with David Tennant, called David Tennant Does a Podcast With..., she revealed what it was like growing up as a popstar in her mid-teens, dealing with it and that whirlwind marriage to well-known radio DJ Chris Evans.

David played Doctor Who at the same time Billie played the role of Rose Tyler.

He describes that relationship as 'tabloid catnip', as Billie and Chris would go across the world enjoying themselves together, but Billie said it was more than just the lifestyle she loved.

She said: "I went and got hammered for three years with Chris Evans - we had a really amazing time together, I imagine it's what your uni years feel like, reckless, you're learning a lot - it was an incredible time and not to undermine our relationship because we had a very loving relationship.

"It wasn't that we were going out and getting f****d, we had a very caring, loving relationship.

"It meant that I let go of the singing and that world in quite a brutal way, whereby I think I stopped taking people's calls.

"I started going to acting classes in LA as we moved out there for five months, then I came home, got an agent, went for it and got cast in Doctor Who."

Billie and Chris met when she was 17 and he was 34 - and they married five months after that, in Las Vegas in 2001 but the whirlwind marriage only lasted three years.

On the podcast, Billie said she was living on her own at 13 and had her own flat at 14, making beans on toast with a glass of milk for dinner and going to work.

She was the youngest person ever to debut at number one in the UK Official Singles Chart when she was 15 but said the marriage to Chris came at a time she wanted to get away from the world of music.

Billie said: "I'm only just coming to terms with a lot of things that happened in those teen poster years.

"It's a deeply unnatural to experience such highs at that age - it gives you a false sense of power, it gives a sense of confusion and it's not something I'd want for my own kids.

"If you're not falling apart around those things that are happening, then there maybe is something wrong or you've had the most perfect upbringing.

"I was way too young but I was headstrong as a girl, I was really ambitious - my parents wanted me to have a life they never had and were seduced by the opportunity too."

Billie is appearing in Scoop on Netflix, an upcoming film based on the true events leading up to Prince Andrew's 2019 BBC Newsnight interview.

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.