Denise Welch broke down in tears on Monday's Loose Women while recalling a period of her life when she was being hacked by a newspaper group.
The actress, who recently came face to face with a former Sunday Mirror journalist who admitted to hacking her, became emotional while explaining the effect the tabloid articles had on her sons, Matty, 34, and Louis, 22.
After explaining that she believed her privacy was illegally invaded over a period of six years, Denise went on to say: "Did I do things that were not good? Yeah, of course, I did. I've always said, if you're doing something in a nightclub with someone you shouldn't be with and the paps get a picture of you, fair cop."
"But all of the stuff that was out there about me was gained by illegal means," she continued as she began to tear up. "When you've got to say to your 12-year-old child, 'There's going to be a story tomorrow which is going to really affect your life about mum.'"
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Composing herself, she continued: "I didn't trust anybody for years because they always knew where I was. I blamed people I was working with because discussions were heard in a hotel room and I had a target on my back."
The Hollyoaks star went on to reveal that members of the paparazzi have since explained to her that they were told by their employers to get pictures of her "at all costs". They told her: "Even if you came out of a restaurant completely sober, the photo of you with your eyes closed is the one we would use because people believed you were like that."
© Ken McKay/ITV/ShutterstockDenise recently sat down with former Sunday Mirror journalist Graham Johnson in an interview organised by ITV.
Denise only discovered that she'd been a victim of hacking after Graham went to the police and admitted to voicemail interception. He was given a suspended sentence in 2014.
In 2016, Mirror Group Newspapers apologised to Denise and paid her damages for intercepting her voicemails and illegally obtaining her private information.
© David Fisher/REX/ShutterstockSpeaking about meeting Graham, Denise said: "I feel better having heard it from the horse's mouth. I understand that he wasn't trying to have pity for himself, he had a family to feed and was told that everybody was hacking. So, go and hack otherwise you'll lose your job.
"It's made me more angry that the people who are the editors and deputy editors of these newspapers run on fear are still being protected."
© InstagramA spokesperson for Mirror Group Newspaper told ITV: "Where historical wrongdoing has taken place, we have made admissions, take full responsibility and apologise unreservedly, but we will vigorously defend against allegations of wrongdoing where our journalists acted lawfully.
"MGN is now part of a very different company. We are committed to acting with integrity and our objective in this trial is to allow both the business and our journalists to move forward from events that took place many years ago."
