Sheridan Smith has said she was “drunk and emotional” when she accused her partner’s mother of killing one of her dogs earlier this year.

The TV and stage star said she has now stopped drinking alcohol after years of struggling with personal issues, and that her fiance Jamie Horn is supporting her.

In May, Smith claimed in a now-deleted post that Horn’s mother “killed my dog”, and that she is “capable of anything”.

Smith, 37, told the Telegraph’s Stella magazine that she feels like “such a knob” for her actions.

She said: “I was drunk, upset, emotional and angry and… Can you believe I, of all people, went and put it on Insta again.

“How many times can I rant off on Insta and regret it and then do it again? I’m such a knob.”

Smith, known for her critically-acclaimed roles in TV programmes Mrs Biggs and Cilla – and for her work in the theatre in productions such as Legally Blonde, Flare Path and Funny Girl – told the magazine that she has given up drinking and that she is working on helping herself.

Smith, who has previously talked of her mental health issues, said: “I’m getting there. But I can still go off on one.

“I’m on anxiety medication, which seems to be working. Having Jamie has really helped me, and people think I’m mad having so many animals but they give me real peace when I’m with them.

She said, of giving up drinking: “You can’t do it without support but (Jamie) knows and I know I’m so much better for not drinking.”

Smith previously made headlines for pulling out of a number of the Funny Girl shows in the West End following her father Colin’s cancer diagnosis and his death in 2016.

Sheridan Smith and her father Colin
Sheridan Smith and her father Colin in 2011 (Yui Mok/PA)

She said: “In my industry, we are meant to smile and say: ‘Everything is great. I’m fine. My life is wonderful!’ But that’s not always the way it is.

“And I became a problem for everyone because I couldn’t lie anymore. I fell apart completely in public. And genuinely I thought I’d blown it.”

Smith will return to the West End this month as the narrator of a new production of Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.