Celebrity chef Nigella Lawson has made her first TV appearance since allegations about her drug use and 'mortifying' details of her collapsed marriage to Charles Saatchi emerged during the trial of the couple's personal assistants, Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo.
She said her only desire during the headline-grabbing trial was to try and protect her two children, Cosima, 19, and Bruno, 17.
Nigella appeared on the US TV programme Good Morning America to promote her new US show, The Taste, but was also asked about the court case when she faced allegations of being an habitual drug user.
Asked what it was like to be a witness in the trial of Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo, who were acquitted, Nigella said: "I can't really remember exactly because you're so focused on answering the questions to the best of your ability that actually you don't really have an enormous awareness of yourself.
"Maybe that's a good thing. My only desire really was to protect my children as much as possible which ... alas, I couldn't always do."
Nigella said having details of her acrimonious split from millionaire art dealer Saatchi talked about in court and then in the world's media was "mortifying".
"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," she said.
Nigella filed for divorce citing her husband's unreasonable behaviour after shocking photos emerged of him gripping her neck.
During the interview she said she was looking to the future. "Actually since then I've eaten a lot of chocolate, had a very good Christmas and am into the new year."
Nigella also commented on the fact that as a witness she was not able to have a lawyer defend her in court, unlike the two defendants on trial: "It's one of the niceties of the English legal system that you're not allowed any counsel if you're a witness but maybe that will change, maybe that's good."
She admitted during the trial that she took cocaine with her late husband John Diamond when he found out he had terminal cancer, and in 2010 when she claimed she was being "subjected to intimate terrorism" by Saatchi. Police are to review her admission that she took the class A drug.
The Taste is also being broadcast in the UK on Channel 4 from January 7 and has been described as MasterChef meets The Voice. Nigella and two fellow judges, chefs Anthony Bourdain, Marcus Samuelsson and Ludo Lefebve.