Actress Portia De Rossi has said that she believes that taking actresses working on Ally McBeal as her role models may be the root of her anorexia.

De Rossi said that working with ultra-thin women such as Calista Flockhart and other cast members gave her a skewed view of what it was like to be a celebrity.

She told Vogue magazine: "I've often wondered if I wasn't on that show if it (anorexia) may not have happened.

"I didn't really know at that point what it was like to be a celebrity, and the only people I knew at the time who had a similar experience were these women whom I worked with.

"They became my role models."

De Rossi's eating disorder came to a peak in 1999 when she starved herself so much that she weighed only 82 pounds (37 kg), a weight which was life threatening. She has only just decided to reveal the story of her struggle with the disorder with the help of her girlfriend, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres.

She said: "We've talked a lot about this. I'm not proud of this struggle. "(While anorexic) it just seemed like I literally wanted to disappear. And now I would like to reappear."