The North East was rocked today as Ant revealed he has been shot in the eye by long time friend and co-presenter Dec. Sources suggest they were settling their differences over a carefully orchestrated game of paintball when Ant took off his protective mask.

“I’m not playing anymore!” He said to his mates Shearer, Beardsley and Cheryl

“Don’t worry pet” said his buddy Dec “I wouldn’t shoot you without your goggles on… Psyche!”

And with that the Geordie duo opened fire on each other, with Ant taking a paintball right in the eye. He is expected to be in rehab for a few months, ITV will replace him temporarily with a smiley face drawn on a prize marrow.

Rumours that Ant is entering rehab for drug or alcohol addiction have been spuriously denied, as has gossip circulating that Ant is only retreating from public life in order for his shiny forehead to be re-waxed.

“We were worried that our audiences wouldn’t watch Britains Got Talent or Saturday Night Takeaway without both halves of Ant’n’Dec” said an ITV spokesperson “but luckily our average viewers are so fucking stupid that they won’t know the difference. We’ll just show a montage of Amanda Holden being sassy spliced with a dancing dog or some other bullshit, they love that sort of trash, it’s all just filling time between adverts anyway”