The Dick Van Dyke Show star has finally admitted her best-kept secret – an ongoing battle with alcoholism for years.
In a recent interview, Mary Tyler Moore, actress/producer and feminist icon, confessed she hid a drinking problem for years. Not even her closest friends and family knew she was sucking down drinks on the sly.
"An alcoholic woman, in most people’s eyes, was one who had just really gotten sloppy, gotten dirty," Moore revealed.
"Being able to come out and talk honestly about (alcoholism) gave a lot of people the opportunity to look at themselves carefully and say, ‘Hey, yes I look good, my clothes are nice and I’m warm and delightful, but I’m also an alcoholic,’" the Oscar nominated Moore said.
Mary broke new ground in her own show The Mary Tyler Moore Show during the 1970s which depicted the trials and travails of a new divorced woman "making it". In real life she also suffered from breast cancer, undergoing a double mastectomy and penning a best-seller about her struggle First You Cry.
