Olly Murs has explained his side of the story after being accused of sparking panic during a terror scare in late 2017, insisting that “something happened that day”.

On Friday 24 November, panic broke out on London’s Oxford Street due to false reports of gunfire, and while it was later revealed that the incident was actually an altercation between two men, shoppers were sent into a panic and mass evacuations took place.

At the time, Olly was in Selfridges, where he tweeted: “Fuck everyone get out of @Selfridges now gun shots!! I’m inside.”

When the truth about the matter – including the fact there were no gunmen – was revealed, Olly was roundly mocked for his role in the panic, but speaking on Monday (9 April), the star was keen to defend himself.

“I ran into an office after being told by the staff of Selfridges that someone was there with a gun,” he explained to the Sun. “Whether they were shooting into the air, or whatever, something happened that day — whether it was covered up, I don’t know.”

Emphasising how terrifying the ordeal was, Olly added: “I ran for my life thinking ‘Someone’s upstairs shooting.’ The noise of people screaming, it was terrifying.

“I found a door and said ‘Guys, quick, let’s go into this office.’ We ended up going through this back alley and got about 20 people in.

“This woman said, ‘Someone was up there shooting, I could see him, in the beauty aisle he had a gun’.

“This girl was saying ‘Don’t tell me I’m lying, I saw this guy with my own eyes’. Whether he shot someone or was shooting in the air — well, obviously he didn’t shoot anyone — but someone saw something.”

It wasn’t just Twitter users who had a laugh at Olly’s expense and three months after the incident, Jack Whitehall made a joke about it at the Brit Awards.

Following a performance that included impressive pyrotechnics, the host quipped: “That was a controlled blaze, by the way. Apparently Olly Murs was in the toilet tweeting about it.”