Reality TV star and lawyer Nancy Dell’Olio has said she is like a “female Peter Pan” because she keeps getting “younger and younger”.

The Italian personality, 56, said her love life is better now she is in her 50s, and that she grabs the attention of younger men as she gets older.

Dell’Olio told Hello! magazine: “When I was growing up I was looking for security and stability and I was sometimes attracted to older men.

“Now, I find myself in situations where younger men are attracted to me, maybe because I get younger and younger.

Nancy Dell'Olio
Nancy Dell’Olio (Hello! magazine)

“I call myself the female Peter Pan.”

The star, who dated former England football manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, who is 14 years her senior, added: “Sex and physical attraction are very important and it’s much better in my 50s than in my 20s.

“After 40, women are in complete control and you know exactly what you want and what you don’t.”

She said she thinks “this new generation of young men are much more mature compared with when I was in my 30s”.

“They are more in touch with their emotions and they’re not scared of women, maybe because their mothers are different women and we are living in a different world,” added Dell’Olio, who last year dated a man more than 20 years her junior.

Speaking of her romance with Eriksson in the early and mid-2000s, Dell’Olio said: “I hope I brought a sort of glamour to football.

“What Sven and I created, the press had never seen something like this before.”

Hello! magazine
Hello! magazine (Hello)

Dell’Olio, who has appeared on Strictly Come Dancing and Celebrity Big Brother, will next appear in a new four-part series called Our Shirley Valentine Summer.

She and the likes of presenters Melinda Messenger and Sian Lloyd bond as they embark on a journey of self-discovery on a holiday in Greece.

The full interview is in Hello! magazine, out now.