MasterChef’s Donna Air slams claims she has ‘poshed up’ her accent for beau James Middleton

TV star Donna Air has denied she has ditched her Geordie accent and “poshed up” since starting to date the Duchess of Cambridge’s brother.

Air, who is currently appearing on BBC's Celebrity MasterChef, said she has been accused of abandoning her Newcastle dialect to give herself "more social cachet" during her on-off relationship with James Middleton.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, the former Byker Grove actress said: "Some viewers seem more surprised by what came out of my mouth than what came out of my oven.

"My voice captured the public imagination in a way that even my surprise pink pudding simply didn't.

"Twitter decided I'd 'poshed up' on purpose, a slur to which there is only one possible answer: 'Haddaway man, you must be a reet wazzock if you reckon that.'

"Which roughly translated means: 'Oh come off it, you must be a bit of an idiot if you think so.'"

Viewers on Twitter had speculated the 36-year-old had received elocution lessons since she began her relationship with Middleton.

"I think it would be far weirder if I sounded the same as the 10-year-old Donna who starred in TV series Byker Grove asking PJ (Anthony McPartlin, now half of Ant and Dec) if he'd like to share a banana milk."

Air said she believed criticism of her accent was due to snobbery.

While dating ex-boyfriend and businessman, Damian Aspinall, she was asked whether they had difficulty communicating with one another.

She wrote: "It's not a debate about my accent, it's a debate about how a Geordie girl whose life is supposed to have a gritty Northern narrative should find herself down and out in ... Knightsbridge.