Akon has looked to clear up allegations that he fabricated his criminal past after claiming he spent three years behind bars.

The singer says the comment meant an accumulation of time, not one three year stretch, after The Smoking Gun questioned if it was true.

He told Access Atlanta: "I got caught up in cars and this and that. Kept going in and out of jail. Three months here, six months there, two weeks here.

“And it was to a point where I was like, ‘This really doesn't make any sense. What am I doing?’ And the last stretch I did was six months in Dekalb County (Georgia) after I was pulled over in a stolen car."

He added: "So I guess when I was being interviewed, and I would say, ‘Yeah I did about three years,’ I wasn't saying I did a three year stretch, I was calculating the time from when I started to get in trouble to the time when I said, ‘Enough is enough.’

“And I think that was mistranslated in the Smoking Gun article and other stories."

Akon then went on to dismiss reports that he was jailed for be the leader of a car theft ring.

"The majority of the time I was in jail was for theft by receiving. I was always receiving stolen cars," he explained. "I mean, honestly, if I was, they would have had enough to make it stick. They tried to convict me as (a) ringleader and they didn't have enough evidence."