Mr Selfridge actress Amanda Abbington brands bankruptcy publicity 'mean' and upsetting

Amanda Abbington and Martin Freeman at the TV Bafta Awards last week (Getty Images)

Actress Amanda Abbington - the long-term partner of Hollywood star Martin Freeman - has called it "mean" and upsetting that her bankruptcy woes went public.

The Mr Selfridge star, who is set to appear with Freeman in a new series of BBC1 detective drama Sherlock, was declared bankrupt earlier this year over a £120,000 tax bill.

The 39-year-old, whose Hobbit star partner is said to be worth £10 million, told the Radio Times: "It's fine, it's being sorted out. It was a big mistake and I'm sorting it out right now.

"It's being paid off now. I would never want to go through this again. But I'm paying it off."The actress said: "It was just me not managing my finances properly. I was putting some money away (to pay tax), but not all of it. I was working one year and not working another year. So I was using the money I'd saved... It will be annulled in a couple of months."

Asked whether it was important for her to fix the problem on her own and not rely on her movie-star partner, she said: "Yeah, oh God, yeah. And it just got out of hand. I never wanted to avoid my taxes. The thing that upset me was it's nobody's business.

"But it becomes public because they put it on something called The London Gazette and then people find out. It's mean."

Abbington, who can currently be seen in BBC1 drama Case Histories and is set to appear in Sherlock and the new series of Mr Selfridge, joked that "People will hate me!" because of her on-screen ubiquity.

"They'll be like, 'Oh, no, it's her again. Jeez! Martin Freeman's on the side of buses, she's all over my television - they can just ...off!"', she added.

Pictures from the set of Sherlock, which showed her wearing a wedding dress, sparked rumours that her character could be set to marry Freeman's alter-ego, Dr John Watson.

Asked about the rumours, she said: "Was I marrying (lovelorn pathologist) Molly maybe? I put that (idea) on Twitter and they all went mad, all the little Sherlock nuts. Not mad. They're very sweet girls. But there is a fandom..."

Abbington had a benign lump removed from her breast while Freeman - who she met on the set of TV movie Men Only in 2000 - was in New Zealand filming The Hobbit movies.

But Abbington, who has two children with Freeman, told the magazine that she was able to cope, saying: "I'm an only child, I'm quite self-sufficient - I can get on with stuff on my own. I don't like to worry other people, either. And it was fine in the end, and Martin was fantastic.

"But I said to him there was no point in him coming home. He'd be sitting there holding my hand and worrying, whereas he didn't need to."

PA