Billie Piper has revealed further details of her fight with anorexia, admitting she would go as long as she could without food, consuming only Diet Coke, coffee and cigarettes.

In her forthcoming autobiography, ‘Growing Pains’, she reveals she started starving herself after overhearing a TV presenter calling her fat when she was 16: “I’d cut everything out and see how long I could go before I had to eat. At one point, I managed five days.”

“I read about a girl who ate tissues to fill herself up, so once I tried to force Kleenex down my throat. But not only was I still hungry, I nearly choked on a ball of tissue.”