Piers Morgan has hit out at singer Elaine Paige, after she compared Susan Boyle to “a virus really that spread across the world in a nanosecond.”

Paige has since claimed that her comments were misquoted by the Daily Mail and insisted that she was referring to Susan’s rise to fame and not to her personally.

Morgan refused to accept her explanation and in his Daily Mail column wrote: “Elaine Paige has come out with some extraordinarily bitchy remarks about Susan Boyle, saying she’s a ‘virus’ that she ‘doesn’t feel any pride for’.

“I, of course, presented the TV special at Christmas in which Susan sang a duet with Ms Paige, and got twice the ovation that Susan’s idol received.”

He added: “This, coupled with the fact that Susan has sold ten million albums and become a global superstar in a way Ms Paige never came close to achieving, may explain her pathetically jealous and mean-spirited hissy fit.”