Robert Pattinson 'bitten by lion'

Robert Pattinson has revealed that he was bitten by a lion on the set of his new film, but the "gentle" animal had no teeth.

A lion clamped his jaws around the Twilight star's arm but the actor escaped without injury because the creature was being friendly.

Pattinson, who plays a circus worker in Francis Lawrence's film Water for Elephants, was required to shoot scenes with a number of animals.

According to WENN, he said: "Almost every day I’m working with an exotic animal… It’s insane, like I got bitten on the arm by a lion with no teeth.

"They were like, ‘It’s fine, he does it all the time’. And I was like, ‘Erm, OK…’ But they had to get him to do it harder, because he was being so gentle and just licking my arm."