The Chase star Anne Hegerty has revealed ITV "threatened her with suspension" over a controversial post which she was forced to remove from her Twitter account last month.

The 60-year-old brainiac is one of the 'Chasers' on the hit British television quiz show, but during an appearance on ITV's Lorraine, hosted today by Christine Lampard, Hegerty admitted a recent tweet had landed her in hot water with the network.

"I tweeted a tweet last month, it got 25,000 likes before ITV ordered me to take it down and threatened me with suspension," said Hegerty.

"So yeah, ok, fine. I took it down."

The tweet in question was aimed at an online troll who had criticised Emily Atack, an actress who Hegerty appeared alongside while on reality show 'I'm a Celebrity'. 

The tweet told Atack she was not 'pretty enough' to play Blondie lead singer Debbie Henry in a biopic. Hegerty responded calling them a 'sad c**t'. 

As Hegerty and Lampard went on to discuss the perils of social media, Hegerty admitted she was sometimes unsure what was appropriate to share with her 11,100 followers.

However, she put her faux pas down to an error in judgment and insisted she was not trying to be provocative or antagonise ITV in any way.

"It's a case of, sometimes you don't always know what's appropriate or what people will find appropriate or not," she said.

"And one is not actually trying to upset the source of one's bread and butter."