Jack Whitehall has said he was initially going to sing with Hugh Jackman during the Brit Awards opening performance, but that he was later “cut completely”.

Whitehall, who hosted the Brits in February, had a small part in Jackman’s The Greatest Showman set, popping up towards the end of the song on stage and clapping his hands.

He has now revealed he was preparing to sing Keala Settle’s part in the song The Greatest Show, but that his part was pulled.

Whitehall told ITV’s The Jonathan Ross Show: “I love The Greatest Showman, I was so excited to be a part of that.

“Initially I was going to sing.

“They were like, ‘Would you like to open the show with Hugh Jackman?’.

“I was like ‘Oh my God yes, that’d be amazing!’

“I thought I did (have a good voice) and they gave me that solo, the Keala solo in that song which is Whitney levels of high pitched, it’s so difficult.

“I went off, I went to a sound studio, I recorded my voice, I laid it all done and I got to the rehearsal and they went ‘We’re going to have you dancing at the back now.’

“I got cut completely.”

Whitehall, 30, also said that he shaved his body for his TV series Bounty Hunters in a bid to save a colleague from being fired.

Speaking of the Sky series, in which he stars alongside Rosie Perez, he told of a scene in the first episode where he is stripped and “suspended through a wall” with his bottom on show during a fight sequence.

He said: “Although for the first time, it wasn’t my arse. They got a body double.

“This is so awful, they hired a guy, he arrived at set before me, stripped him down, looked at him, he was covered in hair so they then waxed him.

“Then I arrived, I got ready, they saw that I am very hairy and then without my knowledge they fired the guy.

“I was like ‘no get him back, I will shave myself to make myself look like the double’ because otherwise that is the worst morning ever, you’re hired, you’re taken somewhere, shaved and then fired.”

He joked: “That is a bad morning’s work. So I sheared myself! I was shaved. Manscaped!”

The Jonathan Ross Show airs on Saturday March 16 at 9.30pm on ITV.