LONDON - Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling has told a student magazine she contemplated suicide before her rise to success, a British newspaper reported Sunday.

The British author said she had suicidal thoughts in her mid-20s, when she was a single mum and struggling to succeed as a writer.

"Mid-20s life circumstances were poor and I really plummeted," Rowling said, according to The Sunday Times.

The newspaper said she told Edinburgh University's Student magazine that she sought help from doctors and spent nine months receiving cognitive behavioral therapy.

"We're talking suicidal thoughts here, we're not talking 'I'm a little bit miserable'," Rowling was quoted as saying.

The newspaper said Rowling sought medical help following her separation from first husband, Jorge Arantes, a Portuguese journalist.

"I have never been remotely ashamed of having been depressed. Never," Rowling was quoted as saying. "What's to be ashamed of? I went through a really rough time and I am quite proud that I got out of that."

Fortune magazine ranks Rowling, who wrote seven Harry Potter novels, as one of the richest women in Britain, with an estimated wealth of 504 million pounds (US$1 billion; euro647 million).

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Last updated: 04/22/2008 - 09:46 AM