Jim Carrey stole a story from Tom Hanks and retold it on US TV

The actor was recently a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman and he was asked if he was an animal lover.

He said: 'I am, I have dogs actually. I have a couple of dogs and they're vicious. The other night I took them for a walk and they ran into the bushes after someone.

'And I'm like: 'Whoever that is, they're in a lot of trouble.' They're in there [makes a barking sound]. Then I hear one of them, there's nothing. And then one of my dogs goes [makes dog sound].

'And then they come out of the bushes and like something has happened to them and I don't know what it is, did they run into a brick wall? I didn't know what had happened.

'And then Dave, like a plume of smoke... hits me, comes at me and overpowering me and Dave, they got skunked.'

Carrey then went on to say if they could talk they would have reacted like this before dropping onto the floor.

However Letterman admitted the same thing had happened to the actor Tom Hanks and his dogs had also been skunked.

Carrey said: 'Are you saying I stole from Tom Hanks?'

Letterman replied: 'I'm just saying it's unusual to me the nature of the coincidence. I guess it could happen...'

Carrey added: 'That sort of thing happens to a lot of people, doesn't mean I'm plagiarising him.'

But Letterman wanted to show Carrey the clip of Hanks telling the same story on his show two years earlier and said: 'Do we have Tom Hanks with the skunk story?'

They then showed Hanks telling the exact same story and doing the exact reaction that Carrey had done.

After the clip was shown, the camera went back to Carrey and he was looking sheepish.

He said: 'That is a weird coincidence, for that scene thing to happen to two A-list celebrities... freaky! Is this the Late Show or the Twilight show?

He added: 'I think he [Hanks] stole it from me.'

Before the story, Carrey had made an interesting entrance to the show with a performance of the Black Eyed Peas track I Got A Feeling.