SHE may have been voted the world's sexiest woman, but Christina Hendricks has disclosed she was bullied for her appearance as a teenager.

In a 2010 Esquire magazine poll of female readers, Hendricks was voted "the sexiest woman in the world".

The actress said she was a "goth kid" with purple hair and black make-up as a teen, which led to her being persecuted by her high school peers.

The 36-year-old, who shot to fame as Joan Holloway in the US television drama, Mad Men, claimed classmates often spat on her in the corridor.

She likened her school days to the William Golding novel, Lord of the Flies, saying she was made to feel "ugly, awkward and horrible".

It was not until after she left school that Hendricks began to gain confidence and started modelling.

Hendricks told the Daily Mirror: "My school days were pretty unhappy. I had the worst high school experience ever. I went to a mean school and was bullied like crazy.

"I was a bit of a goth with purple hair and I was also part of the drama group, so my friends and I were all weird theatre people and everyone just hated us.

"There was a long corridor with lockers on either side and kids would sit on top of them and spit on you."

Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Hendricks was young when she moved to a small town in Idaho with her parents.

A natural blonde, she began dying her hair red at the age of 10 - to be like the heroine of children's book Anne of Green Gables. The family moved to Fairfax, Virginia, in her early teens, where the bullying started.

Hendricks added: "Moving as a teenager is never easy. So I tried to set myself apart and it ended up with multicoloured hair. It was how I was expressing myself.

"I was a goth kid. I dyed my hair about 42 different colours, shaved it at the back and wore black make-up. Kids can be judgmental about people who are different. But instead of breaking down and conforming, I stood firm.

"My mother was mortified and kept telling me how horrible and ugly I looked. Strangers would walk by with a look of shock on their face, so I never felt pretty.''