Dawn French: I quit my TV show when I realised joke was on me

DAWN FRENCH has revealed that she quit her TV show with Jennifer Saunders after a skit she performed with US pop star Anastacia left her “humiliated”.

The comedy duo retired their show French & Saunders in 2008 after French performed a skit dressed in the I’m Outta Love singer’s signature cowgirl look.

Speaking alongside Saunders on a new BBC documentary, she said: “I came off stage, said bye to everyone … got into my car and just wept all the way home.

“I hated that, I hated everything about the day and I said I’m never going to do that again. I’m never going to feel humiliated like that again. I could’ve just been hormonal, but I just hated it.”

The comedian and presenter, 66, explained that the costume designer “fell on her back laughing” at the cowgirl-style costume French was wearing.

“I looked in the mirror and I thought: ‘Yes, this isn’t it, this isn’t what Anastacia looks like.’ But instead of finding it funny, I just thought: ‘Oh I don’t like it.’

“It felt like I wasn’t in control of the comedy. The joke was on me. I hadn’t controlled it in any way,” she added.

Saunders replied that she “didn’t realise it was so dramatic that you decided to end the whole act”.

The pair discussed the ending to

their comedy double act in French & Saunders: Pointed, Bitchy, Bitter. Saunders insisted their show had “ended on TV long before” the Anastacia sketch, saying that commissioning teams had “started to cancel everything”.

French – who has faced criticism for her body shape – said that her father had instilled confidence in her at a young age. “My Dad noticed that if you are a little fat girl, you could trip into a great big crack of low self-esteem,” she said. “We live in a world where people would love you to have some shame about whatever shape you are, and I have never understood why I should.”