Over the past twelve months, Cara Delevingne has made it progressively clear that she wants to move away from modelling. She says that the industry is “horrible and disgusting”, made her feel “hollow”, and led her to hate her body.

Last week, while taking up a speaker’s seat at London’s Women In The World summit, the supermodel-turned-actress underlined the shortcomings of the modelling industry, urging girls to “dream bigger”.

Noting the abuse she witnessed young models receiving at the hands of indifferent agencies and ill-intentioned photographers, Delevingne recalled that she was driven to overwork herself and, after a while, “started to get sick”.

She said that modelling not only exacerbated her skin condition, psoriasis, but caused her severe “depression”. Recognising that although she “couldn’t be luckier”, she confessed that her “external life” was very different to the “internal battles that were going on” while modelling was her primary focus.

“All those problems I had I masked with medicine instead of taking time to really solve them. But at that time I really wanted someone to stop me, to go ‘you need to take a break’ you need to look after yourself”

Speaking alongside the likes of Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Mhairi Black on diverse women’s issues at the annual summit, Delevingne revealed that it was Kate Moss who finally came to her rescue: “What happened is I eventually said no, I eventually took a break to the advice of Kate Moss who kind of picked me up off the floor.”

Along with Moss’ support, the 23-year-old acknowledged that both yoga and writing had a large influence on her recovery. “Writing was something that really saved my life”, she said.

Before allowing her interviewer Rupert Everett to ask further questions, she read aloud a poem, written last year. Read the poem and watch the interview below.

Who am I? Who am I trying to be?

Not myself. Anyone but myself.

Living in a fantasy to bury reality,

Making myself a mystery

A strong façade disguising the misery

Empty, but beyond the point of emptiness

Full to the brim of fake confidence

A guard that will never be broken

Because I broke a long time ago

I’m hurting but don’t tell anyone,

No one needs to know

Don’t show what you’ve failed

Always OK, always fine, always on show

The show must go on

It will never stop

The show must not go on

But I know it will

I give up, I give up giving up

I am lost

I don’t need to be saved, I need to be found