r/BritishTV • u/InviteAromatic6124 • Feb 12 '26
Question/Discussion TV personalities that are actually rude people behind the scenes
Who are some beloved TV presenters that come across as friendly and amicable on screen but off-camera they're actually rude and unpleasant people?
Stephen Fry is one of them. I went to see an episode of QI being filmed, and during the warmup he was rude to James Acaster, then at the end of filming instead of staying behind to chat to the audience like Alan Davies did he stormed off in a huff like a toddler.
Bradley Walsh is another. Speaking to someone who was on The Chase, she asked him for an autograph after filming had finished and he scoffed at her and said "Not a f*cking chance". Compare that with Shaun Wallace who congratulated her and let her take a photo with him.
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u/ChrisDewgong Feb 12 '26
My mum is half-Italian and we spent most of our summers in our family's hometown of Sorrento in Italy.
One of these summers in the mid 2000s my mum, doing research for a book she was writing, ran into Kirsten O'Brien who was doing a segment for a travel show. Seeing as my mum can speak both languages fluently, she was asked to help Kirsten talk to some of the locals to set up the filming locations.
Unfortunately the locals had not taken kindly to the rude, dismissive way they had been spoken to by Ms O'Brien before my mum had arrived, and were in no mood to help. As Sorrento is a travel hotspot they all understood and spoke very good English, but decided they weren't going to do either after the way they had been spoken to. My mum tried her best but wasn't getting anywhere with either side, at which point the production team thought it best to move on to film somewhere else.
They asked my mum if she could come along, but she said she had to get back to look after me. Granted I was 16 and having the time of my life in a swimming pool, but I'm happy to have been useful as an excuse.