Hurley's bikini glamour

Elizabeth Hurley has celebrated her 39th birthday with a new set of pictures.

The actress travelled to Richard Branson's Caribbean island of Necker to pose on a deserted beach for the Harpers & Queen photoshoot.

But in an exclusive interview with the magazine, she said that despite being one of the country's most successful models, she found it a struggle to get into her bikini this summer.

Hurley said: "Everyone dreads a swimsuit shoot and I was feeling particularly pale and uninteresting after a long English winter.

"There's nothing like a bunch of 15-year-olds slinking around in swimsuits to throw you into an emergency diet and exercise programme."

The model, who also wrote a travel feature for the magazine, says that she is usually "obsessed with bikinis" and adds: "I like tiny string bikinis in hot colours."

She was accompanied on the trip by her boyfriend, Indian millionaire Arun Nayar.

Hurley followed a strict eating and exercise regime to shed the 53 pounds she put on while she was expecting her son Damian, now two.

She says she still has to watch what she eats to maintain her streamline figure, although she reveals she was "very lucky" never to have suffered from stretch marks during her pregnancy.

Lately she has taken a break from her modelling career to concentrate on acting. She is due to appear in the film Method which will be released later this year, and is about to start filming another, called Air Rage, with Hollywood director Ron Underwood.

*The full interview with Elizabeth Hurley appears in the July issue of Harpers & Queen on sale next week.