“It just felt like I wasn’t in control of the comedy. The joke was on me. I hadn’t controlled it in any way,” she added.

Saunders said that she “didn’t realise it was so dramatic that you decided to end the whole act”.

The pair discussed the ending to their famous comedy double act in a new BBC documentary about their partnership titled French & Saunders: Pointed, Bitchy, Bitter.

They had become famous on their BBC sketch shows for their Hollywood parodies, during which they spoofed popular films such as Titanic, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Kill Bill.

Saunders insisted that their show had “ended on TV long before” the Anastacia sketch, saying that commissioning teams had “started to cancel everything”.

She said: “We sort of thought well, nobody really wants us any more and the truth is you need a break.”

‘It starts to look bitchy’

French explained that “sketch shows are a young person’s game”, saying that to be able to do a good skit one needs to be able to be an old person and a young person, and that older people are “limited” in that sense.

Saunders added: “When you’re old and famous and taking the piss out of other famous people, it starts to look bitchy. It starts to look pointed, bitchy and bitter.”

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Meanwhile, French – who had been criticised for her body – insisted that she never disliked herself and said that her father had instilled confidence in her at a young age.

“My dad noticed that if you are a little fat girl, you could trip into a great big crack of low self-esteem,” she said, adding: “I think he just knew instinctively that he needed to make sure that I had armour.”

“We live in a world where people would love you to have some shame about whatever shape you are – and I just have never understood why I should.

“It’s who I am, and I’m going to inhabit it right to the very ends of my fingers, because it’s what I’ve got to work with.”

The Telegraph, London