Sarah Ferguson opened up about a past struggle she kept hidden as she made her debut on Loose Women on Thursday.

The Duchess of York, 64, revealed how she thinks she looks “pretty and slim” when she looks back on photos from the 1980s despite struggling with a secret eating disorder.

Speaking on Loose Women, she said: “The other day I was looking back all through the 80s when I was wearing those ridiculous clothes…

“And I look back and I think actually you’re very pretty! And you were quite slim and you look lovely and in 1986 the nation stopped for my wedding, and you know it was a great dress.

“But honestly from that moment I had such… self-hatred.”

She added that her relationship with her body has changed since her breast cancer diagnosis and masectomy earlier this year.

Sarah Ferguson, known as Fergie, said she now finds her breasts a “badge of honour” and is “proud” of her scars.

She said: “I remember Eugenie at her wedding – and she has a scoliosis scar down her back – and she wore a V-neck wedding dress. And I thought, good for you, you’re wearing your scar.”

She then joked that if she walked around showing her scar “with no clothes on, it would cause a little bit of a front page”.

Last year, Sarah told Metro that she still and that her weight is still a “trigger point”, ahead of publishing her first young adult novel.

She previously opened up about developing a disorder with eating as a child, turning to food for comfort after her mother left.

Speaking on a podcast with ayurvedic doctor and naturopath Dr Vijay Murthy, she said: “I was a binge-eater. I never could get bulimia because I just didn’t have that mental state to go that far, but I always wished I could. But that just shows you how dangerous and what place I got to. To wish you could have a mental illness to that level is a very serious place to get to.”

Asked how she got into such a state, she replies: “My body and mind was in that place, but I couldn’t actually act out to make myself sick.”