I threw myself out of moving taxi when Benf admitted he had been cheating he didn't stop to check if I was alive

Vanessa Feltz has had an epiphany. And all it took was a simple leap of faith: out of a moving taxi.

- EMMILINE SAUNDERS, JANE WARREN

Just minutes before, the TV star had been told that her fiance of 16 years was cheating on her and having got him to confess during their cab journey, she simply couldn't bear to be in his presence a second longer.

So, she opened the door.

And jumped.

It was not the first time Vanessa had been warned about the former boybander's behaviour.

But it was the first time her daughters, Saskia and Allegra, had been the ones to break the news to her - and that was her wake-up call.

"I suppose you could say my entire love life has been a complete abomination, a catastrophe, an absolute car crash," she says. "People might think I'm an absolute fool. And if they do, they would not be wrong." Today, as Vanessa opens up about her rollercoaster relationships in our exclusive interview, she insists she still believes in love - but has come to an important realisation: she's done with frogs, users and wrong 'uns, however charming they may first seem.

After all, the 62-year-old has certainly had her share from her cheating ex-fiance Ben Ofoedu to the ex-husband who called her "disgustingly fat" and put her on a "12-week trial period" to the supposedly super-religious "nice guy" who cheated on her and boasted about it to her friend's brother.

"I've been single for 21 months and counting. It's not my happy state," Vanessa tells us. "But I'm certainly not going to be plunging in with any old renegade.

"I won't be going, 'Here's my cheque book', 'Take a kidney, what would you like?', 'Please let me give you half my house immediately'. I'm not doing that any more.

"I've got to have learned something from all of this, haven't I? I hope I've learned that anyway."

Frank and honest, Vanessa hasn't got time for fame seekers either.

"My last relationship has put me off dating anyone who's a wannabe," she says.