Ricky Gervais plays down Golden Globe furore

British comedian Ricky Gervais has defended jokes he made about Hollywood stars at Sunday's Golden Globes, insisting he did nothing wrong.

The Office star received mixed reviews as the award ceremony's host, after making jokes about Charlie Sheen, Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp.

"If they didn't want me, they shouldn't have hired me," he told Piers Morgan on his new US talk show.

"I don't think I did anything wrong," the 49-year-old said.

"I'm not going to apologise for being true to myself. My strategy is to make me laugh. If there's anyone in the world like me, that's a bonus."

At one stage during the evening, Gervais introduced Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr - who has a history of drug problems - saying: "Many of you in this room probably know him best from such facilities as the Betty Ford Clinic and Los Angeles County Jail."

Morgan asked Gervais whether he cared about what the stars might be going through in their private lives.

"I'm not judging them for what they did," Gervais said on the CNN programme.

"I'm confronting the elephant in the room. Like, I'm going to go out there and not talk about the issues in their industry.

"Don't forget, I've got to be an outsider there. I mustn't come out there as everyone's mate and schmooze - that's nauseating. I've got to come out there, and I've got to roast them."

The comic insisted that he only accepted the job on the condition that he could say what he wanted.

During the ceremony, viewers speculated whether Gervais had been asked to calm his performance down, after he disappeared from stage for nearly an hour.

But Gervais denied that was the case, insisting that he did "every single introduction I was meant to. There just happened to be a long gap".