Trisha Goddard still feels 'angry' at the family secret her mum took to her grave

British TV host Trisha Goddard says her life was severely impacted by a family secret that was kept from her for years.

Goddard, 63, who has battled breast cancer and had a stellar career, recalls feeling something was "different" about her from the age of six. She noticed her skin was much darker than that of her three younger sisters and that she looked nothing like her white father.

"I felt very angry towards Mum," she has told Piers Morgan during a recent Life Stories interview.

"She could have told me. And there were excuses like I wasn't ready, I wasn't stable, then I was in the public eye, and what have you. But I don't think I would have judged her.

"It made a huge difference. I was so different from my sisters in every way."

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Goddard was raised by mother Agnes Fortune and father Peter, who met as trainee nurses. She is the eldest of four children and has three younger sisters.

She says Peter found out when Goddard was three months old that he wasn't her father, but it was never discussed.

Agnes died in 2004 before telling her daughter the truth.

"She told her friend it was just a fling at the West Indian Club," Goddard said. "I've tried to track down that West Indian club."

"I'd like to know for my health, like where my cancer comes from. I remember saying to Dad, 'I look just like Mum'. And he said, 'No, you don't'. I was so different from my sisters, in every way. It affected me dreadfully in my life."

It was 2017 when Goddard began her search for her biological father using photos of her mother from a 1956 Christmas dance.

To this day she hasn't discovered who he is, but hasn't given up hope.

It was her father who confirmed her suspicion she was not his biological daughter.

Goddard wrote in The Guardian: "My dad told my husband, Peter, the truth about my background, that Dad was led to believe I was his daughter, and didn't know until my mother admitted that another man was my dad...

"This was when I was about three months old. I think he was too scared to tell me himself. I've since had a heritage DNA test, which shows I am also nine per cent Asian, which implies that my biological father was West Indian too."

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Goddard rose to fame as a TV presenter and actress. She is best known for her morning talk show Trisha on ITV, which eventually moved to Channel 5.

She later moved to the US where she hosted The Trisha Goddard Show from 2012 until 2014.

Goddard was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008, describing the discovery as "devastating".

"I found out with a laugh and a cry at the same time because I remember the guy doing an ultrasound and I said to him, 'So have I got cancer, yes or no?'" she told Morgan.

"He said 'I'll send the results to your surgeon' and I said, 'Tell me now'. And he said, 'No, I'll send the results to your surgeon' and I said, 'How long have you been doing this for?'

"He said, '19 years'. I said, 'So you know breast cancer when you see it'. He said, 'Yes'. I said, 'Right, I promise you I won't sue you, but tell me now, do I have breast cancer? Tell me now, here'. And he said yes.

"I had two operations, seven, eight months of chemotherapy, basically a year of radiotherapy."

Following treatment, Goddard was told she was in remission later that year.

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