Carol Vorderman (62) says she has five ‘special friends’ but isn’t into one night stands

The 62-year-old Countdown star revealed her unconventional relationship status on Michelle Visage's Rule Breakers podcast.

"I'm having the best time,” she declared. “I've spoken about this once. I have a system which I've had for 10 years. They're called 'special friends'.

"I spoke a couple of months ago about having 'special friends' and it was like, again, the world had fallen in for some people but actually what I found was there was an awful lot of women who said 'I'd never thought about it like this'.

"This whole assumption, 'Have you got a partner yet? Have you got a man?' Well, no actually, I've got five.’

"One's 11 years, one's seven years, you know everyone is single. It's a happy place. I hasten to add I'm not into one night stands," she added.

"The language around a woman of my generation is that if you had more than one partner when you got married, you were this, you were that.

"Everything was derogatory about a woman, that was the environment I was growing up in. It was like 'she's desperate', everything was judgmental.

"Well you can take all that and you can throw it out the window, that's my polite way of saying it."

Carol also offered romantic advice to listeners, saying: "I'm a great believer in chapters of my life, and some are extended chapters and some aren't.

"I now - the last ten years or so - live a very much freer life where I have special friends and I am not looking for one person."

Carol has been married twice, with two children from her first marriage.

She has been single since her divorce from Patrick King in 2000.