Fern BrittonFern Britton has come forward with a harrowing revelation.

She's told how, as a young woman, she was raped.

The 51-year-old has described the terrifying ordeal in her upcoming memoir.

In a Daily Mail extract from Fern: My Story, to be published next month, the This Morning host explained how she was assaulted soon after her 21st birthday when she was living in Cambridge.

Fern said she met the man in question because she handed his missing dogs into a police station - he asked to take her on a date, and it was when he picked her up at her flat that the attack happened.

"I didn't have a phone at the flat, mobiles hadn't been invented, and before I knew what was happening he was up on his feet and trying to kiss me - pushing me against the wall, then down on to the floor," she said.

"I was absolutely terrified, and thought: 'I'm done for - what do I do?'

"He was a big man and very fit and I decided the safest thing to do was just let it happen, neither struggle nor co-operate, stay limp and get it over with as soon as possible," she continued, adding that the horrific episode dragged out over the entire night.

"I would lie there, wondering if he was asleep, wondering if I could just run out into the street - but where would I go? In the morning he got up, got dressed and left."

Fern said she didn't report the attack because "I didn't have bruises and he didn't hit me", but pondered: "Where is he now? Did he do it to others?"

In her book, Fern also reveals how she almost took her own life after battling with depression.

"There were days when I could hardly get out of bed," she said. "If I wasn't such a coward, I knew I would have killed myself."

Fern also talks about her controversial decision to have a gastric band implanted to lose weight, saying: "I did it for me - because I wanted to."