She attacks assistants with bejewelled mobile phones and screams at airline staff . She's also defied a broken childhood to inspire a generation. But now approaching 40, Naomi Campbell appears to be changing from the selfish, ego-driven supermodel to the girl who Sarah Brown nominated as a '21st-century heroine' and who Nelson Mandela calls his 'honorary granddaughter'. The accomplished supermodel gave Live a credible impression of a diva desiring desperately to atone.

"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 embar****ed 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."

Sorry: I've worked very hard on correcting my previous wrongdoings, said Naomi Campbell. 1/1

Naomi says she's looking forward to turning 40, but she's chillingly aware of how close she came to becoming another casualty of the modelling world. Two months away from her 40th birthday (May 22), her skin is completely unlined and there are no telltale signs of Botox or discreet surgery.

"I thought I'd never actually make this birthday, the period from 1998 until 2005 was very difficult," she says. She is now dating Russian billionaire Vladislav Doronin -- the man for whom she has said she's quitting the UK. "We're leaving London, I live in Moscow now permanently and I really love life there.