Prince Andrew's former wife has spoken about her battles with mental health after developing an unhealthy relationship with food in her childhood. The royal has also said that she used to compare herself to Princess Diana and wanted to be just as "beautiful and thin" as her.

       "I tried, but of course it never went that way,” she said in a podcast with ayurvedic doctor and naturopath Dr Vijay Murthy.

       The Duchess of York made a shocking revelation that she once “wished” she could become bulimic.

       "I was a binge-eater," she told Dr Vijay Murthy.

       "I could never get bulimia because I just didn't have that mental state to go that far, but I always wished I could.

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       "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.

       "My body and mind was in that place, but I couldn’t actually act out to make myself sick. I then grew and grew and grew."

       Fergie recently released her first novel following a successful career writing children's literature.

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       The novel, Her Heart for a Compass, allowed her to dive into her troubled past and address her eating disorders.

       She told The Sun: “I think when you are abandoned by your mother, who left when I was 12, you start believing that you are not worthy of love.

       “That then manifests itself as deep insecurity, mental health problems and issues around eating properly.

       “I went through a form of self-sabotage and it took me a long time to work through all these issues.

       “I wish somebody had taken me in and helped me with all that."

       Recently, the royal told Hello! that therapy has helped her recover.

       "I did have and still have mental health issues, which I work at literally every day, I really do," she told the magazine.

       "And I have been in therapy for 24 years."