He's not battered, he's not bruised and he's not bloodied - His ears will be ringing though

Crowe on Mr Gerrie

Crowe was said to have confronted Malcolm Gerrie, whose company, Initial Productions, made the programme for the BBC because his quote from Kavanagh's poem Sanctity had been dropped.

Crowe told Entertainment Tonight: "If you know anything about me you know I am going to stand up for myself if I believe I've been wronged."

Speaking of Mr Gerrie, the actor said: "He's not battered, he's not bruised and he's not bloodied. His ears will be ringing though.

"I have no regrets about what I said to him."

But he added: "What I said to him may have been a little bit more passionate than now, in the cold light of day, I would have liked it to have been."

Time

Crowe won his Bafta award for playing schizophrenic maths genius John Nash in A Beautiful Mind.

He is also nominated for a best actor Oscar for the same role. Last year, he won that top acting gong for Gladiator.

Crowe stressed to Entertainment Tonight his Bafta speech lasted only one minute and 50 seconds.

Crowe won an Oscar for his role in Gladiator

In his Bafta speech Crowe said:

"To be a poet and not know the trade,
To be a lover and repel all women;
Twin ironies by which great saints are made,
The agonising pincer-jaws of heaven."

In a statement after Sunday's awards a spokesman for Initial said: "All we're saying is that Russell Crowe was abusive and behaved very unreasonably.

"We told people accepting that they must keep their speeches to a minimum because we were conscious of the time constraints.

"They were told this three times. As with many other winners his speech over-ran and he was not the only one who was edited."

The decision was made in collaboration with the BBC, the spokesman said.

He also added a number of other winning speeches were edited.

The spokesman added that Mr Gerrie was not going to take the matter any further.