Ant and Dec’s apology over blackface skit

ANT and Dec have issued an apology for a segment of Saturday Night Takeaway in which they used blackface.

The pair darkened their skin and wore prosthetics for the undercover sketch, in which they pranked famous people.

The presenters said they would not make those sketches today and had requested ITV remove them from their streaming catch-up service.

A statement said: “During past episodes of Saturday Night Takeaway we impersonated people of colour in the Undercover segment of the show.

“We realise that this was wrong and want to say that we are sincerely sorry to everyone that we offended.

“We purposely stopped doing this several years ago and certainly would not make these sketches today. We had already taken steps to ensure footage was taken down and have again recently confirmed with ITV that these segments, and any other historical content that could cause offence, does not appear on either the ITV Hub or the Saturday Night Takeaway Youtube Channel.”

The pair wore blackface in

2003 as they dressed up as two fictional Jamaican women, Patty and Bernice, to prank Emmerdale cast members.

During the prank, the pair pretended to be troublesome extras in a scene filmed in the Woolpack pub.

In a separate clip from a Saturday Night Takeaway

DVD, Ant and Dec discuss getting into character. Dec then mimicked a Jamaican accent and said: “We had to find who Patty and Bernice were, so we’d have to go, ‘Well, I think Bernice probably came to England on a boat’.”

The following year, they dressed up as two Japanese girls called Suki and Keiko.

Dec also dressed up as a fictional Bollywood star called Davinder Singh with Ant playing his father-in-law Randeep.

It comes after Little Britain was removed from iplayer because of the use of blackface in sketches.

BAN Ant and Dec asked for sketches to be pulled