Dancing On Ice judge Jason Gardiner has denied that he bullies contestants on the ITV TV show.

The caustic judge has sparked huge controversies in the past, after he compared Sharron Davies to ‘faecal matter’ and blasted Kieron Richardson for being ‘too weedy.’

“Some contestants take it too seriously and spend all their week thinking about how they can destroy me in the press,” he told The People.

“I take the criticism with a grain of salt but when contestants start throwing around the over-used term ‘bully’, I get annoyed. I am not a bully. When celebrities sign up for this kind of thing and put themselves in a competitive scenario where they get criticised and then come back and call me a bully I get mad.”

On his own past Gardiner added: “I was bullied for 15 years of my life in school and it is nothing in comparison to what I am doing on that show. I know how kids are being bullied in school and it’s very, very different. To say that we, the judges, bully people is laughable and disgusting. Hopefully we can address this issue and not have the subject diluted by spoilt brat contestants.”

“You can’t please all of the people all of the time,” he continued. “So I have to make a decision – do I become vanilla or do I do what I am employed to do? Well, I am always going to do what I am employed to do. What one person finds offensive, another finds hilarious. I can’t worry about whether it is going to offend.”

Gardiner also believes that much of his criticisms are constructive and actually help the contestants to perfect their craft. He said: “I have always been super-critical but I know from the contestants if it was not for the critique I give them they would not be as driven as they become.”