George Hook has revealed he doesn’t think Ryan Tubridy will be able to return to RTE – saying he couldn’t do it if it was him.
The controversial radio and TV star, inset, was sacked from his Newstalk radio show for his comments about rape.
Reacting to Tubridy saying he wants to come back to his radio job in RTE, George doesn’t think he will be welcomed back into the fold. He said: “I was glued to it. I turned off Netflix and watched the Tubridy/Kelly show instead. I haven’t talked to anybody so I don’t know how the public felt but I thought they lost.
“If you were marking it, it was like TDs 6, Tubridy/Kelly 4. Can he walk back again into RTE? The answer is I don’t think so.
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“I don’t know how he can walk back, I don’t know. Let’s put it this way, I couldn’t walk back in.
“I think it will be extraordinarily difficult. To go into the canteen to get a cup of coffee and do all those sorts of things.”
“There is a moral imperitaive. You have to work with people.”
At Tuesday’s Oireachtas meetings, Ryan opened up about being cancelled over the non disclosue of E345,000 made to him by RTE through barter accounts.
The 50-year-old presenter said that his name had been “sullied” by claims RTE had understated his earnings in public documents between 2017 and 2022.
“This is my first rodeo being in the public eye [like this],” he told the Public Accounts Committee.
“I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t know if any of you’ve been cancelled before but let me tell you, you don’t want to be.”
His agent also claimed that the star had “undeservedly” been made the “poster boy” for the scandal.
“My name has been desperately sullied, I think my reputation has been sullied.
“I’m deeply upset. I’m hurt. It’s hard to leave the house if you really want me to be honest about it.”
George was famously cancelled in 2019 from the airwaves after his comments about rape cost him his job at Newstalk.
He expressed his views around the time of a high profile rape trial in Ulster and was later compared to convicted predator Harvey Weinstein by one media outlet.
A defiant George previously said earlier this year: “I had, and it cost me my job, certain views that when we send our girls out we have a responsibility to tell them that if they have 10 vodkas they’re not in a good position to defend themselves against predatory males.
“And that was viewed that I was sort of supporting a rape culture.”
Asked if he learned anything from the debacle or recanted any of what he said he replies: “No, I didn’t do anything. I just became a retired broadcaster.”
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