OSCAR-WINNING actor Russell Crowe last night defended his tirade of abuse against a North-East television executive.

The star of A Beautiful Mind saw red after a poem which he read out at Saturday night's Bafta awards in London was cut from the broadcast.

He was so angry that he subjected director Malcolm Gerrie, 51, from Newcastle, to what a spokesman described as a "stream of abuse".

Crowe told US showbiz programme Entertainment Tonight: ''This was just me standing up for myself.

''If you know anything about me you know I am going to stand up for myself if I believe I've been wronged.''

He said of Gerrie, who produced innovative music show The Tube: "He's not battered, he's not bruised and he's not bloodied. His ears will be ringing though. I have no regrets about what I said to him."

Gerrie's company Initial productions, which also created Crocodile Shoes starring Jimmy Nail, made the programme for the BBC.

Crowe won the best actor award for playing troubled maths genius John Nash in A Beautiful Mind.

He did concede: ''What I said to him may have been a little bit more passionate than now, in the cold light of day, I would have liked it to have been.''

In a statement after Sunday's awards a spokesman for Initial said: ''All we're saying is that Russell Crowe was abusive and behaved very unreasonably.

''We told people accepting that they must keep their speeches to a minimum because we were conscious of the time constraints."