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Footage of Ant and Dec in blackface on Saturday Night Takeaway resurfaces

Footage of Ant and Dec in blackface on Saturday Night Takeaway resurfaces

Footage of Ant McPartlin and Dec Donelly discussing a prank they conducted in blackface on their 2003 Undercover show has resurfaced - and it makes for an uncomfortable watch.

In the second series of Saturday Night Takeaway, which began in January 2003, Ant and Dec undergo extensive make-up prosthetics to prank celebrities like Simon Cowell, who was a judge on American Idol at the time.

In one episode, both of them turn into Patty and Bernice, two Jamaican women who try desperately to distract actors Emily Symons and Elizabeth Estensen with their antics.

The prank proves successful and makes many people laugh, but it's an interview, in which both of them describe the process of getting dressed up for the roles, which makes for a cringe-worthy watch.

In the footage, Ant, joked:

It was funny sitting in a room, learning Jamaican, picking dresses, trying on false nails, was something I didn’t think I’d ever, ever do

While Dec, speaking in a Jamaican accent says:

We had to find who Patty and Bernice were, so we’d have to go 'Well, I think Bernice probably came to England on a boat.’

This is not the first time the two dressed up as a different ethnicity.

In 2004, they came under fire for impersonating two Japanese girls 'Suki and Keiko' to trick the cast of an ITV soap, while the following year, they dressed up as Arab men to prank Paul Burrell.

indy100 has contacted representatives of Ant and Dec for comment.

HT Metro

More: Man wears 'racist' blackface costume on the London Underground

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