Delta Burke Talks About ‘Designing Women’ And Her Drug Abuse Struggles

Delta Burke was as soon as hooked on crystal meth as a option to drop some pounds.

Talking with Chelsea Devantez on her Glamorous Trash podcast, Burke – who performed Suzanne Sugarbaker on sitcom Designing Girls – talked about her falling out with sequence creator Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and subsequent drug abuse.

“It obtained ugly and really unhappy,” mentioned Burke. She labored with Bloodworth-Thomason on the sitcom Filthy Wealthy earlier than Designing Girls, and claimed she considered her as a mentor.

“We do Designing Girls, and I’m so glad to be there,” she mentioned. “I like all the things. However then issues began to alter, which I received’t go into. However that, mixed with changing into well-known, I merely couldn’t address.”

“I needed to go away,” she added, “and I wasn’t allowed to go away. I don’t know what would have occurred to me if I had been allowed to go away. Staying gave me a tremendous character to get to play… and I cherished it, how she developed. I had that despite the fact that it might be tough typically. I’m very grateful for all the things that she’s finished for me, however there’s different points,” she mentioned. “Mainly we tried to kill one another, however you realize, we survived.”

Burke, Dixie Carter, Annie Potts, and Jean Good had been the primary gamers of Designing Girls, which ran for seven seasons on CBS. Burke left on the finish of season 5 in 1991.

On the time, she claimed psychological abuse by Bloodworth-Thomason and her husband, Harry Thomason, an govt producer on the present. She mentioned that Bloodworth-Thomason pressured her to drop some pounds. In the meantime, the Thomasons blamed Burke’s husband, Main Dad star Gerald McRaney, for the falling-out. She modified after she started relationship him, they claimed.

Burke struggled along with her weight all through her TV profession. She started with capsules, which she mentioned she took each morning. When her tolerance made them not efficient, she went looking for one thing else. That’s when crystal meth entered her world.

“No one knew about crystal meth on the time,” she mentioned. “[They told me,] ‘You chop it up. You snort.’ I mentioned, ‘I don’t wish to snort it.’ So I put it in cranberry juice and [drank] it… and wouldn’t eat for 5 days, they usually had been nonetheless saying, ‘Your butt’s too large. Your legs are too large.’ And I now look again at these footage and go, ‘I used to be a freaking goddess.’”

McRaney’s presence eased the moments for her.

“No matter went down that was unhealthy, it was price as a result of I met him. Nobody had ever cherished me fully for me, not even my mom or grandmother. They might choose what I regarded like. He by no means did.”

Burke stepped away from Hollywod and saved a low profile.

“You type of go together with these work schedules the place considered one of you is out of city for months at a time or no matter. You’re going alongside working after which lastly it simply obtained an excessive amount of for me,” mentioned Burke, who now lives in Florida with McRaney. “It obtained too ugly. And impulsively, at some point, it was like the enjoyment of appearing left me. It had been ruined by the ugliness that goes, sadly, with numerous the enterprise. I simply withdrew from the work as a result of the enjoyment was not there anymore.”