The actor/singer agreed to an on-air chat with This Morning hosts Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford from his home in Florida, but when the cameras began rolling he appeared bleary-eyed, tired and irritable.

Asked how he was feeling at the start of the interview, the Partridge Family star - who has filed for bankruptcy and put his home up for sale - turned his head away from the screen in disgust and said tersely, "Absolutely wonderful, thank you."

When pressed to discuss his bankruptcy filing, Cassidy then launched into a bizarre rant about U.S. Presidential hopeful Donald Trump, saying, "You know there is someone in our country whose name is Trump, yeah? And he has declared bankruptcy four times. I just did it to reorganise because I'm in the middle of a divorce, but my life is pretty fantastic, thank you very much."

However, the mood turned even more tense when Cassidy was asked about his "debts", with the 1970s star shaking his head in annoyance as he insisted he is not in financial peril.

He said, "When you declare bankruptcy in this country, it's something that you do in order to reorganise what you have, your assets etc. So I'm not going to discuss that... Are you just here to rubbish me? Is that the course of your interview?"

The discussion then turned farcical as a time delay prompted Cassidy to accuse the two journalists of talking over him, and he shouted the word 'wait' ten times before adding, "Don't interrupt me."

He later raised his voice again when asked about the sale of his luxury Florida mansion, saying irritably, "It has nothing to do with declaring bankruptcy, that was a totally separate issue."

After the toe-curling chat, Holmes tried to reassure any viewers who found it uncomfortable, saying, "All the Cassidy fans out there, we only ask the questions. How he answers them is up to him."

Cassidy's home is on the market for a reported $1.8 million (£1.1 million), seven months after he filed for bankruptcy in February (15). His wife Sue filed for divorce last year (14) after 23 years of marriage.