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EXCLUSIVE: Boozy BB star has depression

Nad rushed into Priory

By Nadia Cohen

BIG Brother star Nadia Almada is being treated at the Priory after suffering a breakdown.

The transsexual telly favourite collapsed in front of friends this week and wept: "I need help. I can't go on."

Our exclusive pictures show her looking frail and anxious as she walked into the exclusive London clinic on Wednesday.

With bleached blonde hair and wearing a white tracksuit and shades, Nadia was in such a bad way she needed a friend's support to get into the £400-a-day centre.

She is expected to stay there for several weeks while therapists help her battle her deep-rooted psychological problems.

Nadia's breakdown came after she arrived back in Britain from making an ill-fated guest appearance on Australian Big Brother.

Although she managed to hide her secret past as a man from last year's British BB contestants, the Aussies saw through her in just two days and reduced her to tears.

Friends, alarmed by her spiralling depression and heavy boozing, begged her to seek urgent help.

One said: "We were concerned that she would do something really stupid like taking an overdose."

Nadia will be closely supervised at the hospital in Southgate, north London, which has treated a galaxy of stars including Kate Moss, Paul Gascoigne and Kerry Katona.

The 28-year-old Portu-geezer, who confessed to the the News of the World that she worked as a prostitute to pay for sex-change ops, is apparently struggling with life as a woman.

Scars

A friend explained: "Nadia is in a terrible way - she just doesn't know where to turn.

"While the physical scars of the sex-change ops have healed, she still needs to make a massive psychological shift. She's struggling to cope with the stress of that. She only had the operation just before she went into the Big Brother house last summer.

She didn't really have a chance to settle into her new body before she found fame.

"As well as trying to get to grips with all the physical changes, she was also trying to come to terms with her celebrity status at the same time. It overwhelmed her.

"She was out every night partying hard, even though she was still taking hormonal drugs as part of her sex-change procedure.

"The two don't mix and one thing led to another.

"She is exhausted and drained. She's just come back from a very difficult trip to Australia.

"Nadia was devastated and burst into tears in front of the cameras when the housemates guessed her secret. It really hurt her that they saw straight away that she was once a man when what she wants more than anything is for her femininity to be celebrated."

The pal added: "It's been almost impossible for her to find a steady boyfriend because most men are freaked out by the fact she used to be a man."

Soon after her TV triumph, handsome gardener Ricardo Camcho revealed they had enjoyed a passionate secret affair. But their romance was short-lived.

Nadia was stunned to scoop the £63,500 prize at the end of Big Brother 5 and admitted that she had gone on the show craving acceptance.

She said: "I'm overjoyed that I've been accepted as a real woman for the first time in my life. It's the most amazing feeling."

A former bank worker from Surrey, Nadia was born Jorge and was known as Carlos before she became a woman through 'sexual reassignment' surgery in December 2003.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/stor...showbiz2.shtml