It’s not the first time the TV star has opened up about her mental health, either. Earlier this year, Cotton spoke about her first ever panic attack, which she experienced whilst driving down the motorway with a friend.

“It was almost like what I was seeing and experiencing around me was not what my body was feeling,” she says. “They were disconnected. It’s not how I had thought a panic attack would feel.”

The experience, she says, was “terrifying” – but she now uses several techniques to keep herself calm and panic attack-free.

“Simple pleasures like being with my family, getting out in the fresh air, eating healthy food and music are all small things that impact my happiness daily,” she told GLAMOUR. “For me it’s all about those small steps in the right direction rather than huge leaps where there are no guarantees.”

And speaking to Stylist in 2017, Cotton says that it was art therapy that ultimately helped her through her “dark patch”.

”A lot of that period is a massive blur,” she explained. “It feels almost like a strange movie. It was really nasty and I felt a lot of very low energy and high energy at the same time. It was an intoxicating combination, a really dark place to be in. It felt like it would never end. It was one of those moments where you lose all hope. Couldn’t see a sparkle of it, not even a glimmer. It was scary.”

”I constantly beat myself up about all sorts of things like not feeling good enough or not having achieved enough – which I know is ridiculous – but I always do the compare and despair thing. It’s hard for women to feel good about themselves. We have to remember to give ourselves a bit of a pat on the back and say, ‘You’ve done really well today.’”.

Image: Rex Features

"I felt like a freak": Fearne Cotton opens up about mental health struggles