Tom Jones insists calling quality of Voice contestants 'sh*t' was a joke

Sir Tom Jones says he was just joking when he called the quality of this series' Voice contestants "sh*t".

The singer attended the launch of the show's fourth series this week in London ahead of its premiere on Saturday (January 10).

However, the veteran raised eyebrows when he broke into will.i.am's sentence 'The talent this year is...' to say:

"...sh*t."

Jones added: "It just slipped out. I hope it wasn't a Freudian slip."

He later, however, insisted that it was all just a joke: "Just to clear this up, when I said the talent this year was sh*t, it was a joke. I like a joke. And when I said I hope that's not a Freudian slip, that was a joke on top of a joke. It was not a Freudian slip. You know what I'm saying.

"The talent this year is excellent. I think we have a great variety of singers. There are no copycats."

Watch Sir Tom Jones perform with Paloma Faith below: