Lily Allen has apologised for comments made on Twitter during a discussion about the Rochdale grooming scandal.
Responding to a Twitter user trying to link grooming gangs to the Muslim community, Lily wrote: "Actually, there's a strong possibility... [the victims] would have been raped or abused by somebody else at some point. That's kind of the issue."
After receiving criticism for her original tweet, Lily later apologised to anyone who might have been "negatively impacted" by her words.
"If there are any victims of abuse and particularly any girls or women from Rochdale who saw my tweet and were negatively impacted, I apologize, of course," she wrote.
"Being able to accept responsibility and apologize is a strength, not weakness."
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Clarifying her comments earlier today (January 8), Allen said that her original comment was not intended to suggest that the abuse suffered by victims of grooming was "inevitable".
"Inevitability and strong possibility and not one and the same," she told one user.
Lily caused controversy last year when she tweeted that she'd "only ever been sexually assaulted by white males".
She was responding back then to former English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson, who'd tweeted: "@lilyallen have you ever met or spoke to a victim of the Muslim grooming gangs, you don't need to go Calais to hear horror stories."
She later explained that she'd been "trying to point out that sexual deviants and murderers operate within every culture,regardless of religious persuasion.
"People need to realise the reality of how white males and their attitudes towards our laws continue to threaten our values and communities."
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