Roxanne Pallett has said she was only with her ex-fiancé because she wanted to get married and have kids.
The disgraced Emmerdale star, 36, caused uproar when she accused Ryan Thomas of deliberately trying to hurt her during a playfight in Celebrity Big Brother , which became known as 'punchgate'.
She now claims the backlash helped her put her love life into perspective, and made her realised that Lee Walton wasn't the one.
It was reported that he dumped her over the scandal, but Roxanne says she instigated the break up.
She told Closer : "The first major decision I made after CBB was to end my relationship. Last year, I got embarrassingly carried away and badly wanted to carve out some happiness.
"I looked at my friends who were engaged and settled with kids; I was 36 and didn’t have any of that.
"If anybody had shown me affection, and told me we had things in common, I would have just clung to it – and that’s what happened
Lee and Roxanne had a whirlwind romance and he proposed to her just a week after they met.
But she now says she was never happy with the steel worker, 40.
She added: "It was contrived happiness. I was engaged to someone I didn’t know.
"The isolation after CBB gave me clarity, and I realised Lee wasn’t the one and it wouldn’t have been fair to stay when my heart wasn’t in it. He isn’t a bad person, we were just on different pages.”
Punchgate plunged Roxanne into a nationwide scandal after cameras showed how Ryan had actually playfully jabbed her
She says that being diagnosed with complex PTSD , regular sessions with a therapist and taking anti-depressants have helped her address what happened on CBB, and her previous struggles.
Roxanne later admitted she'd made a mistake when she watched the footage back and regrets her actions.
