Ananova:

Leslie Ash has likened her "trout pout" disaster to Heather Mills McCartney losing her leg.

The Merseybeat star said she did not deserve to be the butt of jokes about the cosmetic surgery which made her lips swell up.

She tells the Radio Times: "People don't laugh at Heather Mills because she lost a leg."

Ms Mills McCartney lost her leg when she was hit by a police motorcyclist in 1993.

Ash, 43, said in an interview earlier this year: "I had an accident. If I'd lost a leg in a car crash, people wouldn't have felt able to take the mickey out of me so mercilessly."

The actress, former star of Men Behaving Badly, suffered an allergic reaction to collagen lip implants.

Explaining why she had the procedure, she said: "I know I never really needed it doing in other people's eyes, and that's a great compliment.

"But I'm 43 and your top lip disappears when you get to that age, and I felt I had to maintain a certain image."

Ash has since had corrective surgery but the damage appears to be permanent.

"I've been to doctors who've tried to correct it, and some days it's fine. But if I get any water retention, and you do at 43, instead of it just coming on my stomach, I get it on my lips. It's a nightmare," she said.