Actress Christina Applegate has spoken of her heartbreaking decision to have a double mastectomy after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

The star of hit film Anchorman and TV series Married With Children, 36, has now been given the all-clear following her diagnosis last month.

Speaking on U.S. TV show Good Morning America today, Applegate revealed she had beaten the disease - but it had come at a price.

Actress Christina Applegate revealed on ABC's 'Good Morning America' yesterday she is free of breast cancer after having a double masectomy

She said: 'My decision, after looking at all the treatment plans that were possibilities for me, the only one that seemed the most logical and the one that was going to work for me was to have a bilateral mastectomy.

Christina on the red carpet at an awards show in LA last February

'So basically I had a prophylactic double mastectomies.

'I didn't want to go back to the doctors every four months for testing and squishing and everything. I just wanted to kind of be rid of this whole thing for me.'

Despite her positive outlook, Applegate admitted she has experienced darker moments.

She explained: 'Sometimes, you know, I cry and sometimes I scream and I get really angry and I get really like, you know, into wallowing in self-pity sometimes.

'And I think that's - it's all part of healing, and anyone who's going through it out there, it's OK to cry. It's OK to fall on the ground and just scream if you want to.'

After undergoing the mastectomy three weeks ago, Applegate will undergo reconstructive surgery over the next eight months.

She said: 'I'm going to have cute boobs 'til I'm 90, so there's that. I'll have the best boobs in the nursing home. I'll be the envy of all the ladies around the bridge table.

'I'm clear. Absolutely 100 per cent clear and clean.'

Applegate, who found fame in the early 1990s playing teenager Kelly Bundy in Married... With Children, said she had witnessed her mother Nancy battle the disease.

The cancer was detected through a MRI scan ordered by her doctor following a biopsy last year.

The actress has been getting regular mammograms since the age of 30 due to her family's medical history.

Other celebrities to have beaten breast cancer include Kylie Minogue, Sheryl Crow, Olivia Newton John, Sopranos star Edie Falco, Anastacia and Lynn Redgrave.

Christina, back, made her name on the hit show 'Married with Children' TV Programme in which she starred between 1987 - 1997