LONDON (AP) — Phone hacking by the media cost me my job advising Elle Macpherson, a business adviser told a U.K. inquiry Tuesday, describing how the Australian supermodel wrongly blamed her for leaking intimate secrets to the press.

Mary-Ellen Field told an inquiry into British media ethics that the leaks cast a shadow of suspicion over her, with Macpherson becoming convinced that Field was an alcoholic and ordering her to an American rehabilitation clinic. Field said she was shocked by the allegations that she was a drunk who’d been blabbing about her employer, but went along with Macpherson’s recommendation because she needed her job.

“I have a severely disabled child who can never look after himself so walking away from a high-paying position is not a good idea,” Field said.

The rehab was grueling — she described it as being “like one of those CIA renditions, except they don’t put you in chains” — but it didn’t do her much good.

Even though staff at the clinic said she was not an alcoholic, Macpherson fired her anyway, and Field lost her job at her firm shortly afterward. She told the inquiry there was no doubt the sacking was the result of what happened with Macpherson.

Field said her employer told her that “I’d been indiscreet, that the clients didn’t trust me.”