Delta Burke Says Dark Period of Drug Use Was 'Worth' It Because She Met Husband Gerald McRaney: 'I Love Him Desperately' (2024)

Delta Burke is finding the silver lining in a difficult period of her life.

In her first interview in more than a decade, the Designing Women alum, 67, opened up on the Glamorous Trash podcast about meeting her husband of 34 years, Gerald McRaney, after turning to crystal meth for weight loss.

"Whatever went down that was bad, it was worth [it] because I met him,” she told host Chelsea Devantez. “No one had ever loved me completely for me, not even my mother or grandmother. They would judge what I looked like. He never did."

Burke admitted that McRaney, who she met while filming Designing Women, helped her endure some of the most difficult periods in her life before she decided to leave the series in 1991.

“I love my life truly for the first time. And I love him desperately," she shared of the This Is Us actor. "I know that I’m safe and I’m loved. I didn’t feel that there. I wanted to be so much, and I didn’t get to be what I wanted to be, but I got to go there, and I got to be an actress, and I got to make people laugh, which I loved very much.”

Back in 2017, Burke and McRaney, 76, reminisced about one of the earliest public outings of their relationship while in conversation with PEOPLE at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony red carpet.

“We had just gotten together – 1987 was the first time,” recalled Burke of their big date.

She was just starting the second season of her career defining sitcom Designing Women, while he was still in the thick of his breakout series Simon & Simon, where the couple first met when Burke made a guest appearance.

“He asked me to marry him on the second date, so we were pretty committed!” said Burke, laughing.

“I wasn’t going to let her get away,” admitted McRaney. “I already had competition. There were people asking her out on dates, and I was going to move in right away.”

The couple, who married less than two years later in 1989, joked that “surviving” their first Emmy outing did bring them even closer.

“We survived the Emmys, and we’re still together all this time later,” McRaney said, “but people always said to me, ‘You never want to marry an actress.’ Why not? They’re the only people who understand this insanity. And she does. If I’m on location, and I don’t call her until 2 o’clock in the morning, no big deal. She knows. And the same thing out here. If I come in in a foul mood because I’ve had a problem with the script or the director or this, ‘Okay, I’ll listen to you. Just don’t take it out on me, and I’ll listen to you.'”

During her podcast appearance, the actress detailed the scrutiny she faced over her weight during the podcast appearance while on Designing Women and how she was "emotionally too fragile" to deal with the "incredibly ugly" narratives about her size.

“I thought I was stronger. I tried very hard to defend myself against lies and all the ugliness that was there and I wasn’t gonna win. I’m just an actress, you know. I don’t have any power,” she said on the podcast. “I remember on the set, when it got to be really bad, and I wasn’t handling it well with a smiling face, my whole body language changed. I would kind of hunch over... I just tried to disappear.”

After using prescription pills while attending drama school in London, they eventually stopped working for her and she turned to crystal meth.

“Nobody knew about crystal meth at the time,” she said. She was told to “snort” it but didn’t want to, so instead she “put it in cranberry juice.”

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She would drink it before going to work — she was starring in Filthy Rich at the time — and “wouldn't eat for five days.”

“And they were still saying, 'Your butt's too big. Your legs are too big.' And I now look back at those pictures and go, 'I was a freaking goddess.'"