Naomi Campbell 'embarrassed' by past

Mar 22, 2010, 7:02 GMT

Naomi Campbell is "highly embarrassed" about her past.

The supermodel - who has been involved in several high-profile incidents surrounding her bad temper - admits she has made a lot of mistakes over the years but has vowed to move forward and learn from them.

She said: "Everyone knows what I've gone through. I'm human, I make mistakes, but I've come clean on them all. I don't deny them. I've taken the heat and felt highly embarrassed by a lot of them. I'm not proud of the things I've done and the incidents that have happened in my life, and I would never say I was. But I did something about it. I'm not above learning lessons.

"I'm not shirking blame for any of the things I did. I'm responsible for my actions. But I'm also responsible for making changes."

In 2000, Naomi pleaded guilty to assaulting her personal assistant and in 2003 she was sued by another assistant who claimed she had thrown her mobile telephone at her. Just a year later, the 39-year-old beauty was accused of slapping her maid around the face and in 2005 another personal assistant accused Naomi of hitting her over the head with her BlackBerry phone.

In 2006, the catwalk beauty was arrested after she threw a jewel-encrusted mobile telephone at her housekeeper.

She was arrested again in April 2008 at London's Heathrow airport on suspicion of assaulting a police officer after one of her suitcases went missing.

Despite her turbulent past, Naomi is determined to learn from her "faults" as she approaches her 40th birthday on May 22.

She added to Live magazine: "I'm not perfect. I'm very much a work in progress. But I'm trying. I'm working on my faults. That's all you can do - work on them.

"I've worked very hard on correcting my previous wrongdoings and I won't be held hostage by my past behaviour. I always try to treat people with respect.

"I've matured. I stop myself from getting tired and burnt out. I want a quieter life today. I've been through the party scene. You get older and your life changes. Things that matter to you when you're 20 don't matter so much when you're approaching 40."