She has been hailed as a national treasure, the queen of stage and screen, with a damehood to match. But Dame Judi Dench has revealed that her pet parrot has a rather less polite name for her: “Slut.”

The Academy Award-winning actor, who turns 90 next week, said everyone should have a bird like her rescue African grey parrot, Sweetie, despite their indecorous language.

“We had a long chat just now. You shouldn’t ask what she says. She says: ‘You’re a slut’, ‘you’re a slag’,” Dench told the Sunday Times.

“She has said ‘Boris Johnson’ but she didn’t get that from me. She listens to the radio. My god, she’s funny though. She’s very, very funny. Everybody should have a parrot, or a myna bird. Their voices are absolutely incredible.”

Dench has previously revealed how her parrot, who tried and failed to learn Shakespeare, once insulted her housekeeper.

“The parrot was given to me and didn’t speak for a long time,” she said earlier this year. “Then she suddenly said to Barbara, who comes in to me three times a week: ‘You’re a slag.’”

Her grandson’s girlfriend also fell prey to the foul-mouthed bird when she said she was wearing thermal underwear, prompting Sweetie to remark: “Slut.”

“Honest to God, it’s true,” Dench said. “I don’t know where she learned the timing.”

The multi-Olivier-winning actor has said she was given the “charming” parrot for Christmas during the Covid-19 pandemic. She told Louis Theroux she “wouldn’t be without her for the world”, in an interview for his documentary series in 2022.

Dench told the Sunday Times she was not going to dwell on her impending birthday on 9 December. “It’s just that you get a bit nervous when everybody says 90. I don’t want to think of 90 much, I’m going to think about [turning] 29,” she said.