Chris Tarrant in tabloid shocker? (From Borehamwood Times)

Chris Tarrant in tabloid shocker?

3:10pm Friday 5th December 2008

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(11)

I’ve just had a call from a Sunday tabloid reporter hot on the heels of my last blog.

Apparently the deputy editor of The People read it and wanted to hear more of how Chris Tarrant offended the audience in Tuesday night’s screening of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Alarm bells start ringing. Could this snowball into a mini-Ross/Brand saga? After all, once a story captures the public’s imagination like that one did, journalists immediately start hunting for the next similar scoop.

Well, if people genuinely want to read all about what Chris Tarrant said, I think it’s only fair to put all the details on this website, rather than let a national paper get all the glory.

(The original blog can be read here.)

Since Tuesday, my colleagues who were with me have pointed out a few more things that offended them.

One was the way in which Tarrant made fun of one of the contestants. As he hugged her, he turned around to the audience and mimicked putting his fingers in his mouth, as if to vomit.

When she joked that she used to get changed in a telephone box like Superman (because she had two jobs) he said: “I’m not sure I really want to imagine that.”

He also unleashed a tirade of further insults at the short man who brushed his suit - including calling him Bilbo Baggins. To be fair, the man didn’t seem to mind. In fact all of the floor staff just got on with their jobs stony-faced, looking a bit bored by it all, while being insulted both by Tarrant and the warm-up guy.

Another of our party thought Tarrant was too harsh on the contestants for not getting the 'fastest finger first' right – he did make a big fuss out of it and went up to each of them in turn reminding how to press their buttons correctly.

It was his remark to the make-up artist (see first blog) that I thought was his lowest moment.

But Chris Tarrant shouldn’t get all the bad press for the offensive behaviour on the night. It was the warm-up guy (who has apparently partnered Chris Tarrant since the show launched in 1998) who was the main player in my view.

I briefly mentioned his sexist and homophobic comments. These were along the lines of a joke about women moaning all the time (some might accuse me of being a case in point here) and aiming repeated digs at the floor manager, saying he didn’t like women, putting on a supposedly camp voice etc.

Well I’ll wait and see if this unpleasant episode makes the national press on Sunday. I would hazard a guess that my main gripe, with the words ‘pikey’ and ‘gyppo’ is not going to strike a chord with most people, judging by how sadly popular that particular P word seems to be. Or maybe I’m wrong, maybe other people have had enough of casual racism.

Just as a footnote, in case anyone thinks I’m being unfair on the staff at the quiz show, at no point did anyone say that any part of the filming was confidential or should not be leaked to the press. The firm that sent us tickets knew there was a group of us from the local paper. If they had said anything was ‘off the record’ I would, of course, respect that.

Also, I found an interesting article on the BBC’s website about the use of the P-word, if anyone is wondering why and how it came to be a term of abuse. You can read it here.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(11)