In a podcast interview, Michaella McCollum recalls her relentless party lifestyle on the island and the personal struggles she says she was trying to hide.

From one nightclub to home, then straight back out to another party. Michaella McCollum remembers a period in Ibiza when there was barely any room for rest. In a podcast interview, she has opened up about those excesses and the emotional distress she says she had been trying to conceal from a young age.

After a series of poor decisions, McCollum was arrested with 35 kilograms of cocaine in a car and sentenced to six years in prison, after prosecutors had initially sought a 12-year term.

Asked whether she went out every day, she did not hesitate: “Seven days straight, no sleep, no food, just getting up, going out, coming home and getting ready.”

She recalls returning in the morning before heading straight to another nightclub or a daytime party, with little time to recover in between.

During that period of excess, the island itself took a back seat.

“Ibiza is beautiful too, but when you’re partying, you don’t notice it,” she admits during the conversation.

A sunset she remembers for different reasons

Among the memories she shares is a visit to a well-known pub followed by a meal on the beach. Still exhausted from the previous night and having had no sleep, she found herself watching the sunset when she suddenly burst into tears.

“I started crying uncontrollably while watching the sunset,” she recalls.

But she makes clear that the reaction had little to do with the beauty of the scenery.

“I wasn’t crying because it was beautiful. I don’t even think I was taking in what I was seeing,” she explains.

McCollum describes the moment as an emotional crash following a night of partying. Looking back on that period from a distance, she acknowledges how deeply she became caught up in the cycle.

“It was just a downward spiral,” she says.

The struggles she says she continued to hide after prison

Her reflections extend beyond her nights out in Ibiza. McCollum says the underlying issues had been present for much longer.

“I’d been masking everything from a very young age,” she says.

She also acknowledges that leaving prison, where she spent almost a decade according to her account, did not automatically bring that process to an end.

“I’m probably still trying to do that now, even since I got out of prison,” she admits.