Heath Ledger's uncle, Hadyn Ledger, says the actor may have fathered a secret love child.

Haydn claims that when Heath was 17 he had an affair with a 25-year-old woman who is thought to have discovered she was pregnant with a daughter after their relationship ended.

"There is a very real possibility that Heath was the father," Heath's uncle Hadyn Ledger told Australia's Daily Telegraph.

Another family source added: "She had the baby. Everyone lived under the assumption that she was the daughter of the mother's boyfriend and that is how she has been brought up." The woman is now married with a young family.