A woman who was attacked by a 14st (89kg) chimpanzee in February has revealed her disfigured face on Oprah Winfrey’s television show, saying that although she is blind and has to eat through a straw, she is not angry.

“I don’t even think about it,” Charla Nash, 55, said during a taping of the The Oprah Winfrey Show yesterday. “And there’s no time for that anyways because I need to heal, you know, not look backwards.”

Winfrey removed Ms Nash’s hat and veil to reveal her face, which was swollen and damaged beyond recognition. She had a large scar near the bottom of her face and a large piece of skin where her nose had been.

The attack occurred when the animal’s owner, Sandra Herold, asked Ms Nash, her friend and employee, to help to lure the chimpanzee, which was named Travis, back into her house in Connecticut.

Travis had become agitated and, despite being given the anti-anxiety drug Xanax to calm him down, he grabbed the keys, let himself out of the kitchen door and started banging on the roofs of cars outside demanding to go for a ride.

The chimpanzee then attacked Ms Nash, ripping off her hands, nose, lips and eyelids.

Police shot and killed the animal. Ms Nash has been in hospital ever since and remains in stable condition at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

Ms Nash said that she did not remember anything from the attack and did not want to.

“I want to get healthy,” she said. “I don’t want to wake up with nightmares.”

The 15-year-old chimp had appeared in a television advert with the actress Morgan Fairchild and a pilot show with Michael Moore and the singer Sheryl Crow. He was toilet-trained, dressed himself, drank wine from a stemmed glass and even used the remote control to find and watch baseball games on television.

Ms Nash said that she had repeatedly warned Ms Herold that the primate was dangerous and could hurt someone. She said that she had seen the chimpanzee throw large objects around his cage, including a desk and 55-gallon plastic drum, flash his teeth and pound the bars so violently that his hands would bleed and the cage had to be rewelded.

Ms Nash, who occasionally fed the animal oatmeal, said that she was afraid of Travis, who was typically locked in his cage when she saw him. “I always told her, ‘You have to get rid of him, he’s going to hurt somebody someday. He’s too dangerous’,” Ms Nash said.

Ms Nash told Winfrey that she was not in pain but could not breathe through her nose and had to eat through a straw. She said that she didn’t touch her face.

“I know that I have my forehead,” she said. “It feels like just patches of tape or gauze or covering, covering my face.”

It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago, when an eye doctor told Ms Nash that she no longer had eyes, that she realized she would never see again.

Ms Nash’s family have filed a $50 million (£30 million) lawsuit against Ms Herold, saying that she was negligent and reckless for lacking the ability to control “a wild animal with violent propensities”.

Ms Herold’s lawyer has argued the attack was work-related and that the case should be treated as a workers’ compensation claim. Robert Golger, Ms Herold’s lawyer, said that she wishes Ms Nash the best.

“All of Sandy’s hopes and prayers are with Charla and her daughter in this challenging time,” a statement from Mr Golger read. “Sandy hopes and prays for a full and speedy recovery.”

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