Katey Sagal reveals 15-year addiction to diet pills and cocaine... after being exposed to Judy Garland's drug use as a child

Katey Sagal from 'Sons of Anarchy'. Photo / Supplied

It's hard shaking off the character of Peg Bundy, Katey Sagal tells Leena Tailor

Married With Children's Katey Sagal has revealed a secret 15-year battle with addiction to diet pills, cocaine and alcohol.

And the actress blames her starry Los Angeles childhood - in which she saw Judy Garland's struggle with drug abuse at first hand - for normalizing drug use at an early age.

Writing in her new memoir, Grace Notes: My Recollections, in an extract published byPage Six she explains: 'When I was 12, we lived on the same block as Judy Garland.

'Her daughter Lorna Luft and I became neighborhood buddies. Lorna's mom had a lot of pills on her bedside table and slept past noon just like my mom. We hung tight. And, of course, I thought everyone's mom took a lot of pills.'

As the daughter of a singer and film director, Katey was immersed in the showbusiness world from an early age - indeed four of her siblings work in the industry, while the fifth is married to an actress.

She writes that her own addictions were a part of her life for the past 15 years, although she has not publicly spoken of them before.

The actress won a Golden Globe in 2011 for her six-year role as Gemma Teller Morrow in Sons Of Anarchy, and was nominated four times for her role as Peggy Bundy on Married With Children.

In her book the 63-year-old also details a long-running affair with Gene Simmons, of the band KISS.

The then little-known Simmons visited the Santa Monica bar where Katey was working as a singing waitress, and they went home together.

'I thought Gene was really weird,' she writes, as previously reported by the New York Daily News.

However the singer - whose fame was then only just beginning - won her heart.

In fact the pair's fling lasted for years, with Katey even attempting to get Simmonds to propose, however he laughed at the idea.

Katey went on to have a three-year marriage to musician Freddie Beckmeier, followed by a seven-year marriage to the drummer drummer Jack White, with whom she had two children.

She is currently married to Kurt Sutter, with whom she has one child.