TVNZ
Bill Roache on TVNZ's Good Morning (TVNZ)

Veteran soap star Bill Roache told a female TV presenter in New Zealand that she was a "naughty girl" and that he was going to smack her bottom.

The Coronation Street actor appeared on TVNZ's Good Morning show with Jeanette Thomas cooking a crustless quiche.

However, the actor made some inappropriate comments after he realised she had chopped a tomato in the wrong way.

Roache, 81, said: "You shouldn't have done that. You naughty girl. I would say I'm going to smack your bottom - I'd love to do that - but we're not allowed to on TV."

Thomas laughed off the comments but said: "I've heard that about you, 1,000 women."

The actor who plays Ken Barlow replied: "Yes I know, there's life in the old dog yet."

However, the presenter continued to push Roache on the claims he has had sex with hordes of women until he said: "I didn't say it. Piers Morgan talked about how in the 60s I misbehaved very badly and I did have a lot of affairs and girlfriends.

"So he said 'how many?' and I said I really don't know Piers.

"I didn't deny [but] when you don't know you don't know."

His appearance on the New Zealand TV show follows the backlash against the actor for comments he made about sex abuse victims.

Roache, who follows a spiritual movement called 'Pure Love', was being interviewed on TVNZ when he said victims of sex abuse are paying for their past sins.

The actor said he believes negative energy is the root cause of evil: "If you accept that you are pure love ... and therefore live that pure love, these things won't happen to you."

Reporter Garth Bray pressed Roache to explain himself: "To some people that sounds perhaps like you're saying victims bring things on themselves. Is that what you're saying?"

Roache answered: "No, not quite, but then yes I am. Everything that happens to us is the result of what we have been in previous lives."

He later apologised for his comments: "I would never say that victims of sexual offences are in any way responsible for the abuse they have suffered and I offer my deepest apologies if anything I have said has been misunderstood in this way," he said.

"I had no intention of causing any kind of distress as a result of my interview and I offer my utmost sympathies to anyone affected by sexual offences and paedophilia."