Damon Albarn has apologised to Taylor Swift "unreservedly" after claiming that she doesn't write her own songs.

The 53-year-old lead singer of Blur, who spent some of his childhood in Colchester,  made this claim in an interview with the L.A. Times and doubled down when the interviewer argued that she co-wrote some of them.

He said: "That doesn’t count. I know what co-writing is. Co-writing is very different to writing. I’m not hating on anybody, I’m just saying there’s a big difference between a songwriter and a songwriter who co-writes.

"Doesn’t mean that the outcome can’t be really great," he added.

Swift responded to this when this was put in a tweet on the L.A Times account and was not pleased at all.

She said: "@DamonAlbarn I was such a big fan of yours until I saw this. I write ALL of my own songs. Your hot take is completely false and SO damaging. You don’t have to like my songs but it’s really f***** up to try and discredit my writing. WOW.

“PS I wrote this tweet all by myself in case you were wondering," she added.

Later Albarn replied to her tweet apologising for the comment, saying that the conversation about songwriting has been "reduced to clickbait".

He wrote: "I totally agree with you. I had a conversation about songwriting and sadly it was reduced to clickbait. I apologise unreservedly and unconditionally.

"The last thing I would want to do is discredit your songwriting. I hope you understand."