Crowe admits fight with bodyguard

Russell Crowe plays a boxer in his new film, The Cinderella Man

Actor Russell Crowe admitted starting a fight with his bodyguard on a film set.

The star said he "took offence" when he thought Mark "Spud" Carroll was making an accusation about a conversation he was having with a female extra.

"Spud and I had a push around after work on a Friday night," Crowe wrote to Australian paper The Sunday Herald Sun.

"The misunderstanding arose when Spud came over to tell me what he thought other people in the room might have been thinking of my conversation."

The altercation happened at a drinks party on the set of The Cinderella Man - in which Crowe plays a boxer - about a month ago, he said.

It doesn't surprise me that I'm overly sensitive to gossip and speculation Russell Crowe

In the letter, the Oscar-winning actor continued: "I thought he was accusing me specifically of something and I took offence to it.

"It doesn't surprise me that I'm overly sensitive to gossip and speculation and heartily sick of other people's 'perceptions'.

"Spud was passing on other people's 'perceptions' and I shot the messenger."

He added: "Luckily for me, the sequences we were shooting required me to wear heavy post boxing make-up, so you couldn't tell."

He did take a nip at my chest - I was trying to smother him at the time Mark Carroll

Crowe said the extra was a friend of his and wife Dani, who "doesn't have any problem with me having a drink and a chat with the people I'm working with at the end of the week".

The actor said he and Carroll - a former Australian rugby league player - made up the next day.

Carroll, in a separate letter to the paper, denied reports that Crowe had bitten his ear.

"He did take a nip at my chest - I was trying to smother him at the time, so I can understand the move," he wrote.

"As for calling it a fight, believe me, we have done much more damage to each other playing touch footy."