SOUTHAMPTON'S pantomime star Nadia Almada has admitted she was once a prostitute.

The Big Brother 5 winner, who is playing a mermaid in Peter Pan at The Mayflower this Christmas, said she had sold her body to men for almost a year to pay for her sex-change operation.

Nadia, born Jorge Almada on the Portuguese island of Madeira, had the surgery in December last year.

She told a national newspaper: "I feel so ashamed. I've always dreaded this dark secret would come out. Now it has come back to haunt me. I feel so dirty and disgusted with myself. But the money was so good and the attention so great that I became addicted."

She added that she had felt prostitution, through which she earned up to £1,000 a week, was the only way she could get the female body she craved.

The 27-year-old transsexual, who lives in Woking, Surrey, said she was working at the Allders department store in the town, where she earned £200 a week, and was clocking up huge debts on her credit card when she decided to turn to prostitution.

Nadia, who won Channel 4's Big Brother 5 in August, scooping the £63,500 prize, visited Southampton last month to promote the pantomime.

No one from The Mayflower was available for comment on the revelations.