The 57-year-old actress endured a tumultuous time in the media when her sex tape with ex-husband Tommy Lee was leaked online in the late 1990s and later admitted that she once tried to take her own life as she compared her own relationship with fame to that of the late Back to Black legend, who died in 2011 at the age of just 27 as a result of alcohol poisoning.
But the Baywatch star - who has Brandon, 28, and 26-year-old Dylan with Motley Crue rocker Lee - noted that it was in fact her boys who "saved" her from such a fate, even though she knows that is a lot to put on their conscience.
She told Glamour magazine: "[Winehouse] came to my show in Las Vegas. I still have her jacket with a ticket to the magic show in her pocket."
Asked if she thinks her own story could have ended in a similarly tragic way to Winehouse's, she said: "Definitely. There were many times where I could have just gone that way, but what saved my life – and you never want to put this on your kids – were my boys. Because without my boys, I wouldn't have been able to be as strong as I was.
"I had to be strong for my boys. And I also had to leave Tommy for my boys. And even though I married other people and I did other things, my intention was to create a family for them."
The Playboy legend - who has now been sober for a considerable amount of time - is also noted for her activism work with animal charity PETA and admitted that was also another element in contextualising her own fame and realising that it meant she had a platform she could put to good use.
She said: "That made me feel better about it all, that I was helping animals or helping people. And that made me feel a little bit better about all the c*** that was out there about me. I might as well put it to use.
"If it's going to get me in the door with a prime minister or the president, then that's OK. And they usually just want, in some countries, a kiss on the cheek or a signed autograph – and I wanted laws to be changed for animals, and we'd all get what we wanted."
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