Growing up Hollywood royalty 'MY LIFE WAS FAR FROM A FAIRYTALE'

Jamie relives the horror of addiction and her parents' Psycho marriage

When the winner for Best Supporting Actress was announced at the Oscars on March 13, the look on Jamie Lee Curtis' face was one of pure, unadulterated astonishment.

The screen icon was, in that moment, completely taken by surprise. Her jaw dropped open. Her eyes almost popped out of her sockets. And audiences around the world lapped up the spectacle of seeing their favourite Scream Queen finally get recognition for her 45-year-long career.

Winning for her hilarious portrayal of disgruntled tax inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdre in the sci-fi movie Everything Everywhere All at Once, there's no denying Jamie laid it all on the line with her no-holds-barred comedic performance. The truth is, she's been laying it all on the line her entire life.

Despite growing up with two Hollywood A-lister parents her mother was Janet Leigh, famous for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, and her father was Some Like It Hot star Tony Curtis Jamie has had her fair share of battles.

As a child, she failed miserably at school due to an undiagnosed learning disorder. Then, in the early 2000s, the seemingly together star surprised the world by revealing she'd been hiding a decade-long drug addiction.

She hadn't needed to confess. There'd been no behind-the-scenes whispers; no tabloid exposé. Her secret was safe. At the time, she simply figured her story might help someone so she took a deep breath and told it.

It was on the set of the 1985 movie Perfect, when she was 27 years old, that Jamie says her addiction problems began.

"One day, the cameraman looked at me and said, 'Yeah, I'm not shooting her today," Jamie, now 64, recalls.

"I was puffy that day for whatever reason and I was mortified. Right after that movie, I went and had an eye job. That's when I found [painkiller] Vicodin and the cycle of addiction began."