Dawn French is no longer a ''Twitter virgin''.

The 58-year-old comedian has sent her first ever message over the social media site on live TV, having previously had an assistant write and send messages on her behalf.

Dawn - who sent the message during a live interview with Lorraine Kelly - tweeted: ''With Loz, chewing the cud. Boy she smells good! @reallorraine (sic)''

Dawn has had an active Twitter account since June, but revealed she's being relying on other people to send her messages because she ''can't type very quickly''.

During her appearance on 'Lorraine', she revealed: ''Because I know I can't type very quickly, I've already typed in what I've got. But I've never sent one. I already have a Twitter thing but a very nice man does it for me and shows me all the things that are going to go on there. This is the first thing that I've actually written it.''

Dawn then turned to the TV host - who is an avid tweeter - for some reassurance before sending her first message.

Showing Lorraine her phone, she asked: ''Does that look like the kind of thing you do? And do you press that blue button?

''Right, here we go! What will happen to me? And how will I feel afterwards? Will I feel like a woman? Here we go, be unafraid - it's gone! And I feel entirely different now.''