ITV issues apology after airing You've Been Framed episode featuring Cilla Black gag

The clip from 2014 features a look-a-like hitting her head in a pool

ITV has issued an apology after airing an episode of You’ve Been Framed featuring a joke about Cilla Black slipping and hitting her head.

The episode, which originally aired in 2014, sees a red-haired woman try to cross a swimming pool by running across a series of inflatable lily pads.

Narrator Harry Hill, who regularly compares the people in the clips to famous people, says “This is Cilla Black’s final show for ITV, called Cilla’s Super Splashdown”.

The woman attempts to run across, only to slip and hit her head on the edge of the pool and fall into the water.

Hill then shouts “Surprise surprise!”

The incident is remarkably similar to how Black died earlier this year. A coroner described the entertainer’s cause of death as due to a ‘traumatic’’ head injury caused by a fall at her Costa del Sol villa.

But airing the clip following Black's death was considered bad taste.

Ofcom confirmed to The Independent that it had received several complaints since the episode aired and were looking into it.

ITV have since issued an apology.

“This episode was first broadcast in October 2014. we have production processes in place to re-edit programmes in circumstances such as this, but regrettably the clip was not cut.”