Nicola Sturgeon has said online rumours and the need to seek more privacy was “part of the reason” she resigned.

The former SNP leader announced her shock resignation as Scotland’s first minister in February, saying “in my head and in my heart” she knew it was time to step down.

But she has now revealed in a BBC Scotland podcast that online gossip about her had been “part of the reason” behind the decision.

One of the claims she dismissed was she was a “secret lesbian” who had an affair with a female French diplomat and the pair had bought a house from tennis star Sir Andy Murray’s mother Judy as a love nest.

Other rumours she mentioned included her having a global property portfolio and a super injunction in place to hide the truth.

Ms Sturgeon said: “I’m not naive, I’m not of the view that I will step down one day and be completely anonymous the next day. I understand the realities of what I have done and I’ll still be in parliament, but I want to have a bit more privacy.

“I want to have a bit more anonymity and I just want to protect some of what people take for granted in their lives that I’ve forgotten to have.”

Ms Sturgeon led the Holyrood government for eight years after being an MSP since 1999 and said it was “an achievement” that people feel they still do not know anything about her.

She said some people want to believe “there is one hidden secret life of Nicola Sturgeon, which sadly in some respects I am afraid is not the case”.

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Ms Sturgeon added: “I read accounts of my life on social media and I think, ‘You know, it is so much more glamorous sounding and so much more exciting’.”

The seasoned politician was replaced as first minister by Humza Yousaf earlier this week.

Her husband, Peter Murrell, quit as chief executive of the SNP shortly after her resignation as he said his future had become a “distraction” from the contest to replace his wife.

His dramatic departure after more than two decades in the post came after the party’s head of communications quit in the wake of revelations he inadvertently provided bogus membership numbers to a journalist.