Dame Joan Collins has "no regrets" over having an abortion in her twenties.

Dame Joan Collins

Dame Joan Collins

The 88-year-old star - who was engaged to Warren Beatty, now 84, at the time - said a baby would have been "the death of my career".

In an upcoming episode of 'Piers Morgan's Life Stories', Joan explains: "I had an abortion. It would have been the death of my career, and I was by then 26.

"Of course I hesitated but I knew that if I was going to have a child I was going to be able to bring the child up properly and I believed very strongly that I'm in charge of my body.

"I was a feminist before the word was heard and I shall do what I felt was right for me. It would have been wrong to have done that. It would have ruined my life… it would have ruined my life."

Asked if she had a "tinge of regret", Joan replied: "No, not one."

Joan met Warren when she was 26 and he was 22, and they dated for almost two years before they split.

She previously discussed their relationship in her memoir 'Passion For Life', explaining: "Although I wasn't madly in love with Warren, he and I were actually very compatible, even if he needed to have sex several times a day, which often wore me out...

"For me, though, Warren Beatty was just a rebound. And, young as I was, I really should have known better.

"The last time I saw him was at a Hollywood screening. All charm, he told my husband Percy: 'I still love this woman.' 'Thanks for telling me,' said Percy, playfully challenging him to a fight.

"Not a chance, of course. Now Warren's happily married to Annette Bening, we kiss and hug whenever we bump into each other."


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