Victoria Mary Clarke claims an anecdote told by Kiefer Sutherland about her husband Shane MacGowan on Friday's Late Late Show is "absolutely not true".

The Hollywood actor, star of long-running TV series '24', and musician appeared on the show for an interview and two musical performances.

In the course of his conversation with host Ryan Tubridy he spoke about drinking in former celebrity haunt Lillie's Bordello with The Pogues frontman, Van Morrison, Sinead O'Connor and Ronnie Wood.

Sinead O'Connor, he noted, was drinking milk, while everyone else was not. Conversation soon ventured into fraught territory.

"The cardinal mistake of politics and the history of politics started being discussed and Shane MacGowan, who I did not know, he did not share a similar view on the history of Scotland and, before you know it, the two of us were fighting and we were rolling around on the floor," he revealed.

Sutherland added that he remembered Van Morrison laughing and that MacGowan had a cast on his right arm and "he did not have a lot of teeth at the time either, so fighting just seemed unfair."

Once the fight had ended he said he apologised and left the group to drink at the bar only to be tapped on the shoulder by MacGowan about three hours later.

"He said, 'I need a place to stay' and I said, 'You've got to be kidding me. Three hours ago we were fighting on the floor'. He said, 'Well that was three hours ago. Now I need a place to stay."

Sutherland said they shared one last drink at the bar before returning to the actor's hotel where he fashioned a bed for his unexpected guest with blankets and pillow on the couch.

When he woke up early the next morning, his visitor was gone, but "all the blankets were perfectly folded," he said. "You couldn't have done it better. The pillow was on the blankets."

The visitor had also left a thank you note which read like "poetry" and Sutherland added that he still has the letter because "it changed my perspective. Don't judge a book by its cover and very rarely trust first encounters."

However, Shane MacGowan's wife Victoria Mary Clarke disputes one aspect of Sutherland's story, claiming the man who returned to the actor's hotel was their friend Rick Trevan.

Taking to Twitter, she wrote that she "was there too" and added, "This is absolutely not a true story! It was our friend Rick Trevan who slept in Kiefer s room Shane has never folded anything in his life!!!! Great story though [sic]"

She also added, "Love this story! It is absoultey not true, Shane would never in a million years fold the blankets and leave a note! We need to see the note!!!!", and she later tweeted the actor's official account asking to see the note.

In response to a tweet from a follower claiming to have seen Shane MacGowan with a cast on his arm "about 1993 or 1994", she said, "He broke his arm punching Bono's wall".

Online Editors