Eva Longoria's 'Desperate Housewives' stint "changed everything" for her.

The 49-year-old actress played Gabrielle Solis on the hit TV programme between 2004 and 2012, and Eva has confessed to being shocked by the show's popularity.

She said on 'Today with Hoda and Jenna': "It was a decade of my life and it was the No. 1 show in the world.

"I just remember the first time I went to London, I had never been to London before and there was a big crowd of people outside the hotel, and I was like, ‘Gosh, who’s here? Is Bono here? Somebody important must be here!’ And the driver was like, ‘… You…’ And I was like, ‘No, somebody like, big. Like a big deal!'

"And he didn’t understand that I didn’t understand. The global reach of that show, at the time where there was no streaming."

On the other hand, Eva admitted to having some regrets about her character's fashion sense.

The brunette beauty said: "I think, ‘Whose bright idea was it to have those skinny jeans with a zipper this big, below the hips?’ Who?

"They were low rise. I mean, low, low, low ... nobody misses them, at all."

Meanwhile, Eva previously revealed that she considers her political activism to be more important than her popularity.

The Hollywood star has been outspoken about various political and social issues over the years - but Eva isn't worried about losing fans because of her views.

She told ELLE: "There are things that are a lot more important than box office and viewers.

"Women’s rights are very important. The dismantling of human rights, of health care systems, of education systems. The banning of books. These are very dangerous things that need to be talked about, looked at, voted on, and advocated for. So it’s not an ‘Oooh, do I do it?’ I have to do it. It is nonnegotiable.

"I don’t ever think, ‘I’m going to alienate half an audience’ or ‘I’m going to lose some Twitter fans.’ That doesn’t matter to me if I’m saving democracy."