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Blue singer Lee Ryan has explained his controversial comments about the September 11th New York terrorist attacks to fellow Celebrity Big Brother 2014 housemate Liz Jones.

In an interview with The Sun around a month after the tragedy occured in 2011, a teenage Lee caused outrage by suggesting it had been ‘blown out of proportion’ by the media.

He said: “Who gives a ****** about New York when elephants are being killed? Animals need saving and that’s more important. This New York thing is being blown out of proportion… I’m not afraid to say this, it has to be said and that’s why I’m the outspoken one from the band.”

Just over twelve years on, his remarks came up in a conversation with Liz yesterday, with Lee claiming he ‘didn’t mean’ what he said.

“I said ****** New York, think about the elephants, the whales, the dolphins, and The Sun said that I said ‘who gives a ****** about New York’. I never said that,” insisted Lee, now 30. “I said ****** New York. I didn’t mean it, I was seventeen years old.”

He continued: “We watched the twin towers actually crumble in New York, and I was quote ‘passionate’ about animals and stuff, and I said ‘do you know what, I’m so sick about hearing about this **** when all it is going breed is war’.

“I said, ‘why can’t you as a newspaper talk about how there’s tigers nearly extinct, why don’t you talk about s**t that’s actually gonna help the world instead of talking about s**t that’s gonna promote a ******ing war?’”

The chat airs in full during tonight’s episode of Celebrity Big Brother at 9.00pm on Channel 5, which will also see either Jim, Liz or Sam being evicted from the house.

Read more: http://www.bbspy.co.uk/cbb13/news/01...#ixzz2r9nnS400