Yahoo Finance Frankie Bridge filmed Saturdays music video on eve of checking into psychiatric hospital
Frankie Bridge has revealed she went ahead with filming a Saturdays music video after confessing she needed medical help - because the shoot was already paid for.
The 31-year-old singer - who has shared her mental health battles in new memoir Open: Why Asking For Help Can Save Your Life - was in Iceland with the girlband in 2011 to film the video for My Heart Takes Over when she admitted she could no longer cope.
Bridge told Radio 1 Newsbeat: "I'd reached a point where I couldn't cope with everyday life. I was constantly crying and telling my partner [footballer Wayne Bridge] that I didn't really want to be here anymore."
Read more: The Saturdays’ Frankie Bridge opens up about mental health struggles
The popstar revealed it was agreed that she needed to go into a specialist mental health hospital, but the video shoot would last two days and was already paid for, so she and her manager decided she should keep working and be admitted afterwards.
Bridge said: "Luckily it was a moody shoot so I didn't have to put on this happy, smiley front.”
The mother-of-two - who was diagnosed with depression and anxiety- revealed she suffered a panic attack backstage at her first live TV appearance, on BBC’s Children In Need, after being discharged from hospital.
She said: “I had a panic attack in the toilets because I was so overwhelmed. I felt I looked really sad."
The Just Can’t Get Enough singer married footballer Wayne Bridge in 2014. They have two sons Parker, six and Carter, four.
The singer said the England player had to see doctors to be advised on how to support her through her mental illness.
Bridge said: "We'd only been together a year and he's got this new girlfriend and he's having to take her into a psychiatric hospital. He could have easily walked away then... My doctors had sessions with him to explain what was happening and why I was feeling a certain way."
She has asked her husband not to try and "fix her".
Read more: Frankie Bridge reveals her husband Wayne has no football friends
Bridge added: "All I need is for you to listen to me because it can't be fixed. Just be there, embrace it and let them know they're not alone."
Bridge was a child star in S Club Juniors before joining Una Healy, Rochelle Humes, Mollie King and Vanessa White in The Saturdays until they split in 2014.
For confidential emotional support at times of distress, contact The Samaritans at any time by calling 116 123 or emailing jo@samaritans.org.
