Anita Rani wonders if she would have made Strictly final if she 'didn't have a brown face'

Anita Rani wonders if she would have made the Strictly Coming Dancing final if she "didn't have a brown face".

The TV presenter reached the semi-finals in 2015 with professional partner Gleb Savchenko, but the 43-year-old thinks she may have gone one step further if race wasn't an issue throughout her career - a point raised in her new book The Right Sort Of Girl.

Discussing Strictly, she told the latest issue of the Radio Times: "I still find myself wondering whether I would have got into the final if I didn't have a brown face.

"There are various points in my career where I wonder what would have happened if I was blonde-haired and blue-eyed, and sometimes I don't think things would have played out the same way if I was white.

"I've put that Strictly question into my book to leave people pondering, because I'm just not sure."

Anita said it meant a lot to others to see her Strictly success - and she would love to return to the show to win this time.

Having worked for all the major channels, as well as anchoring Countryfile, she believes racism is an issue across the British TV industry, recently revealing she was left speechless by a BBC colleague's racist remark in 2006.

She told Mail on Sunday's You magazine: "There was a moment when someone in a work environment called me the P-word and I just didn't react. Afterwards, I thought, 'Who the f**k am I? What has happened in my life where I just allow that to happen?'''