SJP On Rob's Drug Habit

Sarah Jessica ParkerSarah Jessica Parker isn't all about high heels and acting.

The former Sex And The City star has just revealed how she spent much of her early career dealing with Robert Downey Jr's drug addiction.

SJP and Rob started dating after meeting on the 1984 movie Firstborn.

"Fairly early on in our relationship he told me he had a drug problem," she reveals.

"I was stunned. I did not recognise the signs, I didn't know the profundity of it. I was innocent in so many ways.

"I thought, 'Well I'll help him.' I didn't think that addiction was something that would impose itself on us. I was very wrong."

She goes on to say that she stayed with the actor because she loved him, although her role as carer eventually took its toll on the relationship.

SJP with Robert Downey Jr in Firstborn"I believed I was the person holding him together. In every good and bad way I enabled him to get up in the morning and show up for work.

"If he didn't, I was there to cover for him, find him, clean him up and get him to the set or theatre.

"The machinations of all that are the worst. You're not even in a romantic relationship any more. It's like a parent-child thing."

The couple eventually split in 1991. SJP went on to marry Matthew Broderick, while a cleaned-up Robert is on his second marriage - to movie producer Susan Levin.