Cameron Diaz has said that she can have a child at any point in her life.

The actress, 41, who was previously in relationships with Justin Timberlake and Alex Rodriguez, told the Daily Telegraph that she was not "childless".

She said: "I've never said never to anything in life. If I wanted kids, at any point in life, I would have them.

"But I'm certain that if at any point I wanted a child, that child would find its way into my life, whether through adoption, or through being in a relationship with somebody who has a child.

"I can't see the future, but one thing I do know is that I'm not childless. I have a ton of children in my life. I can have a kid any second, if I want. All my friends would be like, 'Sure, come and get them'," she laughed.

The Other Woman star told the newspaper: "I also, by the way, have a lot of girl friends who don't have children. It's not like I'm the spinster who didn't have a child. I just didn't do that in life, and I'm OK with that. I know the choices I made. I know why I made them."

Cameron said her background, attending a large inner-city school which had metal detectors and a police presence, gave her the ability to understand people.

"It was stark and barren, but it was multicultural, and I think it gave me tools to relate to people and understand them. We had to learn to get along. Not that everybody did all of the time. There was violence. You have that many kids, there's bound to be conflict," she told the newspaper.

"I learnt to be good at being friends with everyone. You have to be tough, especially when you're a skinny white girl."

Cameron said that she had never envisaged herself as an actress in her youth.

"Where I grew up, the options were slim to nothing. In any given year there were at least seven to 10 girls walking around school pregnant. A lot dropped out. A lot ended going to jail, dying or falling victim to drug abuse.

"But there were also a lot who pulled themselves out of it - (rapper) Snoop (Dogg) and I. And some of them have a family and a nice job and live comfortably."