Can a black hole be explained by newtonian gravity?

In the simple explanation that a black hole appears when a big star collapses under missing internal pressure and huge gravity, I can't see any need to invoke relativity. Is this correct?

Answer

By a coincidence, the radius of a "Newtonian black hole" is the same as the radius of the Schwarzschild black hole in general relativity. We demand the escape velocity $v$ to be the speed of light $c$, so the potential energy $GMm/R = mc^2/2$, i.e.

$$R = \frac{2GM}{c^2}$$ The agreement, especially when it comes to the numerical factor of $2$, is a coincidence. But one must appreciate that these are totally different theories. In particular, there's nothing special about the speed $c$ in the Newtonian (nonrelativistic) gravity. To be specific, objects are always allowed to move faster than $c$ which means that they may always escape the would-be black hole. There are no real black holes (object from which nothing can escape) in Newton's gravity.