BOLTON actress Helen Flanagan has been criticised for allegedly publicising a diet craze called “thinspiration”.

The former Coronation Street and I’m A Celebrity....Get Me Out Of Here star has been reported as “liking” a link to an account on a social networking website which promotes girls being as slim as possible.

But the 22-year-old insisted she thought she was “liking” the photographs on a private page that could not be seen by her thousands of followers.

In December, Helen, a former Thornleigh Salesian College pupil, apologised on national television after she posted a photograph of herself holding a gun to her head just days after after the gun massacre of 20 children and six adults in Connecticut, USA.