BRIT Awards viewers were left horrified after someone dressed as the chimp lead character from the Robbie Williams biopic Better Man appeared to “snort drugs” live on air during a chaotic skit.

The shocking moment came as part of a skit in which host Jack Whitehall, 36, poked fun at Robbie’s previous struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, which is covered in the film.

Jack quipped the Angels singer had taken to sending the chimpanzee to events he didn’t want to attend as a man dressed like the character swigged from bottles of champagne and emulated snorting drugs at a table of guests in the background.

Jokingly apologising Jack said: “Oh no, sorry, that’s the monkey from Better Man. I had heard Robbie has been sending the monkey to quite a lot of events he can’t be a**** with.

“Last week it did Loose Women, Jonathan Wilkes’ birthday and date night with Ayda (Field, Robbie’s wife). I’ve also heard, unfortunately, that monkey has gone off the rails a bit since it got famous.”

“It was chucked off the ITV2 show earlier for snorting a line of PG Tips and chimping Ella Henderson,” he quipped.

Fans took to social media to react with many unable to beleive what they had just witnessed. One user wrote: “The f****** monkey doing a line,” accompanied by a skull emoji to indicate they were “deceased”.

“The Robbie Williams Better Man monkey just did a line of coke off one of the tables at the #BRITs i-,” another said. A third chimed in: “No way did they just have that monkey racking a line up.”

Another simply exclaimed: “A guy in a monkey mask pretending to sniff off a table… #BRITs2025 #BRITs #BRITAwards.” Meanwhile a fifth posted a meme of a laughing child writing: “Me giggling at the monkey in the background #BRITs.”

Acts including Sabrina Carpenter and Sam Fender took to the stage to perform as the gongs were handed out at the annual ceremony. It was Charli xcx who proved the big winner of the night, taking home a total of five awards – while her producer was also rewarded.