Cliff Richard’s age is ‘not an excuse’ for a critical comment he made about Elvis Presley’s weight on ITV’s This Morning. 

The 83-year-old musician said he had been offered the chance to meet Elvis as a young man but turned the invitation down because he did not want to be photographed with him. 

“‘Can we put it off?’” Mr Richards recalled saying. 

“Because he’d put on a lot of weight, and I thought, ‘If I’m taking a photograph with him, and it’s going to be hanging on my refrigerator, he’s gotta look good’.

"And I put it off and, of course, then he died… If you're a fan of somebody, if you get the chance to meet them, meet them. 

“Even if they've put on weight."

Presenter Alison Hammond then replied, "You should never have put it off just because they’re a little bit heavier."

'Quite uncomfortable'

Lunchtime Live listener Mary Jane said she had been shocked to hear Mr Richard’s comment. 

“I actually don’t think anybody of any age has an excuse to come out with something like that,” she said. 

“Sometimes when we hear older people… come out and say something [we excuse them] but what he actually said was quite cruel.

“There was somebody [Alison Hammon] there that was plus-sized, sitting on the sofa in front of him and he’s not blind, he could see her. 

“He wasn’t on the radio like I am now… and I actually thought it was quite uncomfortable.” 

Mary Jane said she felt sorry for the show’s other guest, Sarah Ferguson, who has often spoken out about her own struggle to lose weight. 

“She [Fergie] always got a lot of criticism,” she said. 

“There was always this massive comparison with Diana who was more well-behaved and thinner and all that.” 

'People are a bit more copped on'

Mary Jane described Mr Richard’s remarks as “fat shaming” and said people often did it to her when she was younger. 

“I would have had a lot of stuff said to me at a much smaller size than I do now,” she said. 

“So, I do think people are a bit more copped on and I do think people will kind of know in my company that I would [not like it] if they said it to me.”

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Main image: British singer Cliff Richard performs a concert in Oslo, Norway in 2014. Picture by: Gonzales Photo / Alamy Stock Photo