With a successful music career stretching back half a century, you'd think Sir Tom Jones would be a dab hand at dealing with the press by now.

But the legendary Welsh warbler found himself backtracking furiously at the launch of The Voice yesterday after a quip landed him in hot water.

Asked about the standard of contestants, his fellow judge Will.I.Am began: "The talent this year is..."

But Sir Tom cut in: "S**t."

Hosts Emma Willis and Marvin Humes laughed nervously at the gag and the veteran pop star attempted to dig himself out of that hole.

"It was a joke," he insisted to Digital Spy.

"I said it as a joke, and then later on to try and make out that it was a joke - which it was - I said, 'I hope it wasn't a Freudian slip'. Which was like a joke on top of a joke. But then I saw people writing it down and thought, 'Oh God…'"

However fellow judge Ricky Wilson came to his defence, saying: "You would never say that if you weren't joking about it! He'd never say it."

The show returns to BBC One on Saturday evening.