Lots of chocolate helped Nigella get over trial ordeal

Nigella Lawson has described her court ordeal as "mortifying", but said she had "eaten a lot of chocolate" since and no longer wanted to dwell on the experience.

Appearing on live television for the first time since admitting to taking cocaine and dagga, Lawson said this week that she did not approve of "self-pity" and regretted only that she had not been able to protect her children from being dragged into the fraud trial of two former aides.

The 53-year-old appeared on Good Morning America to promote the US television show The Taste, on which she is a judge.

Lawson was immediately asked if she felt as though she had been the one on trial when she was called to give evidence in the trial of Francesca and Elisabetta Grillo.

"I did," she replied.

"My only desire really was to protect my children as much as possible, which, alas, I couldn't always do. Actually, since then, I've eaten a lot of chocolate, had a very good Christmas and am into the new year."

Pressed on how it had felt to have her personal life picked over in court, she said: "To have not only your private life but distortions of your private life put on display is mortifying, but there are people going through an awful lot worse, and to dwell on any of it would be self-pity, and I don't like to do that."

Good Morning America is made by ABC, the network that also makes The Taste, so it was perhaps unsurprising that Lawson was not asked any questions about her drug use.

The breakfast programme is watched mainly by women, in particular mothers, so it is a perfect platform for Lawson to appeal to her core audience. The second series of The Taste, which she is using to break into the US market, begins this week. A British version begins on Channel 4 on Tuesday.