Loose Women’s Denise Van Outen and Coleen Nolan defend Jack Maynard and say he deserves a second chance after highly offensive homophobic and racist tweets

LOOSE Women presenters Denise Van Outen and Coleen Nolan have defended Jack Maynard after it was revealed he had posted a number of offensive tweets.

The stars discussed the shocking tweets on today’s show, admitting that they believed the I'm A Celeb contestant “deserved a second chance” after saying sorry because he was only young when he wrote the tweets.

While Denise admitted that Jack, who has just joined I’m A Celebrity, had used “highly offensive language”, she believes he should be able to move on.

She said: “I think if you’ve apologised then you deserve a second chance. If it’s something you have done when you are young… how many times have you said things that may have been out of character when you were young?

“You don’t really think about what you are saying or doing and if it is just young kids talking amongst themselves…”

She added: “Bearing in mind the words are from popular music…”

Coleen added: “To be fair to him, he has said age is no defence, I disagree. It is massive defence.The difference between someone 15, 16 or 22...

"And also I do think people should get a second chance when it is historic tweets."

In tweets dating back up to six years Jack, followed by 650,000 impressionable young fans, mocked gay men, called his friends the racist term and laughed at people with facial disfigurements.

In December 2012, he replied to two people using the phrase “retarded f****t”.

In one racist tweet, posted online in June 2011, he said he was “At alices with my n****s!” He also repeatedly calls people “retards”.

And as the ITV show launched to millions  last night, Jack admitted the words he used were “inflammatory” and “insulting”.

A spokeswoman for the vlogger said: “Jack is ashamed of these tweets, many were deleted a long time ago.

"He would never use that language now and realises this kind of retaliatory, inflammatory, insulting language is completely unacceptable.”

An ITV spokeswoman said: “Jack has issued a full apology and has deleted the tweets that he sent.”

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