Actress Helen Flanagan defended herself on ITV's Daybreak today after a national newspaper printed a photograph of her posing with a gun pressed to her head.

The former Cororonation Street actress from Bolton had already taken to Twitter after The Sun said she posted the photograph on the social networking site on Monday, just days after the gun massacre of 20 children and six adults in Connecticut, US.

The newspaper labelled the 22-year-old "brainless" and on Daybreak today she broke down in tears as she admitted she had been "ridiculously stupid".

Helen first posted the photograph in October. She said, in floods of tears: "Sorry, it just gets me so upset. It was just a completely out of context tweet, completely. I did the tweet and it was some different pictures in one and it was relating to a hangover on Monday night. And I put something like, oh head… you know, and I treated this picture completely carelessly, like it was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

"It was just relating to a hangover that I had and then I tweeted it and I started getting all these reactions of, ‘How insensitive, how could you do this?’, and I just felt sick. I just deleted it straight away, I rang my best friend and I was like, ‘I can’t believe what I’ve just done’, and I said to her, ‘Shall I reply to these saying how sorry I am?’ And then I thought 'No, it will just draw attention to the fact of completely what I’ve done' – it’s so humiliating.

"And on Tuesday nothing was said of it, it was fine, and then on Wednesday morning I woke up to see that and I was just absolutely, unbelievably just shattered, just mortified by it."

Helen, who had a torrid time on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and was rapidly becoming the nation's most disliked star, is due to appear on a live festive edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? tonight.

It was announced she will team up with her fellow I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! campmate Rosemary Shrager.

The former Coronation Street actress  said: “It should be great fun and I love the show. I have watched it since I was little and it's legendary.”

Also appearing in the Christmas edition will be JLS stars JB Gill — who appears on a Strictly Come Dancing with Fabrice Muamba special next week — and Oritse Williams.

Veteran entertainer Des O'Connor will pair up with comic Lee Mack for the show, aiming to win cash for charity.

The hour-long show will be screened at 9pm.