Cat Deeley apologises to This Morning viewers as she breaks silence on ‘offensive’ epilepsy joke
CAT Deeley apologised to viewers today after causing upset with an 'offensive' joke about epilepsy.
The This Morning presenter admitted she understood why her comment on yesterday's show was inappropriate as Ben Shephard agreed with her.
She said: “I really wanted to apologise to anyone I offended yesterday when I made a light hearted joke about my dancing style.
"It was really wasn’t meant to cause any upset to anybody but I can see why that might have been the case, so I do apologise. I am very sorry."
Ben chimed in: "That would never be our intention."
And Cat added: "It didn’t come from that place at all."
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During the show yesterday Cat was seen dancing and shimmying to the Meghan Trainor song All About That Bass, prompting Ben to laugh at her.
She then declared: "Nothing to see here. Yeah, I'm fine, just having a seizure."
The flippant remark sparked outrage from viewers who either suffer from seizures themselves, or have loved ones who have them.
One person wrote: "Seizures are no laughing matter for people with #epilepsy @catdeeley."
And another viewer tweeted: ";This is heartbreaking to see do know there are many types of seizures and to see you mocking people who have them is very upsetting.
"I have nearly lost my child a few times to seizures and is extremely poorly.
"Maybe you should do a story on epilepsy to see what goes on."
The Epilepsy Society also spoke out to slam the moment.
They wrote on X (formerly Twitter): "Seizures are no laughing matter for people with #epilepsy @catdeeley.
"Please do better and educated yourselves about this difficult and poorly understood condition, @thismorning."
Epilepsy is a neurological disorder that affects the brain and causes seizures.
What is epilepsy?
Epilepsy is a condition of the brain which can disrupt the electrical communication between neurons in the nervous system.
This often leads to seizures, a sudden event that can change a person’s awareness, behaviour or feeling.
The condition is typically diagnosed when a person has two or more unprovoked fits separated by at least 24 hours.
Epilepsy can begin at any age, but it tends to affect people either in early childhood or who are older than 60.
The upset comes after it was revealed ITV's mid-morning show's viewing figures had almost halved in two months.
Just over a million saw new hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard's first day in mid-March.
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But by the same point in May the peak fell to 589,000 - with an average of 486,000 tuning in to the ITV show.
In comparison, BBC1 rival Morning Live had solid figures between one million to 1.4million.