Awkward! Lorraine Kelly slates 'Cats' to Bonnie Langford - whose niece was in it

Lorraine Kelly was left red-faced after savaging the movie Cats during an interview with Bonnie Langford – whose niece was in it.

The presenter made the embarrassing gaffe as she praised Langford for her performance in the stage show of Cats, saying it was far better than the 2019 movie starring James Corden, Dame Judi Dench and Taylor Swift.

“I have to say, watching that tiny little clip of your production of Cats… a heck of a lot better than the film,” said Kelly, clearly unaware that Langford’s niece Zizi Strallen was in the widely-panned movie.

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“Crikey, wasn’t that a bad one?” she ploughed on.

An awkward pause followed Kelly’s comments and Langford looked unsure of what to say next.

“I have to be positive because my niece was in it,” she said finally, as a picture of some of the cast members flashed up on screen.

Kelly rapidly rushed to smooth things over and assured Langford that although the film might not have been up to scratch in her opinion, the theatre star’s niece did just fine.

“Can I say, she was brilliant but the rest of it was not so good, but she was fabulous!” she chuckled.

People watching Kelly’s ITV show thought the moment was absolutely hilarious.

“Lorraine walked right into that one didn’t she?” said one viewer on Twitter, while another declared it an “absolute floor swallow moment”.

“Awks!” said another amused fan.

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Strallen played the character Tantomile in the big screen version of Cats, while Langford played Rumpleteazer in Cats on the West End stage.

The movie was slated when it was released last year, with Rolling Stone saying it “easily scores as the bottom of the 2019 barrel - and arguably of the decade” and the Wall Street Journal calling it “a hairball” of a film.