NEW YORK - Fergie, the female voice of the Black Eyed Peas, says she had to dig deep into herself to kick her crystal meth addiction.

"It was the hardest boyfriend I ever had to break up with," Stacey "Fergie" Ferguson told Time magazine in an interview for the issue that hits newsstands Monday.

"It's the drug that's addicting," said Fergie, who has released her first solo album, "The Dutchess." "But it's why you start doing it in the first place that's interesting. A lot of it was being a child actor; I learned to suppress feelings."

When asked what she does now with those feelings, she said, "I have an hour and a half of performing every night and improvising. If there's a rafter, I can climb right on."

Asked if she ever met Sarah Ferguson, the duchess of York, she said, "We're talking about doing some charity work together, building schools."