Katherine Ryan has mocked criticism of a joke she made after Have I Got News For You viewers shared their upset over its use of the c-word.
The comedian was hosting the BBC’s topical panel show when talk turned to Sir David Beckham receiving his knighthood.
Private Eye editor and long-time panellist Ian Hislop said:”But he was meant not to get it, wasn’t he? Because he’d been pitching for it, and it was considered bad form to be desperate.”
Ryan, reading from her script, replied: “In 2013, when he did not get a knighthood, he emailed his PR saying, ‘They’re a bunch of c**ts, I expected nothing less’.”
Comedian Maisie Williams joked: “It would have been nice and maybe, like, poetic if Charles had got his own back just by knighting him and then going, ‘Arise, you c**t’.”
Some viewers were unhappy with the pair’s use of the expletive with one labelling it “really offensive language” and another writing in a post X that there was “something very odd and jarring about hearing the c word” on the show.
“Unacceptable broadcasting of the ‘c’ word,” said a third. “This is a recorded programme, so who at the BBC felt it was ok not to cut or bleep it out? Really disappointing.”
Ryan has now responded on Instagram, sharing a screengrab of an article with the headline “Have I Got News For You sparks uproar for broadcasting the c-word multiple times”.
She quipped in the caption: “And that was just my intro!”
The emails between Sir David and his spokesperson leaked in 2017, four years after they were sent.
While the former footballer’s team contested that some of the communications had been altered, the insult about the honours committee was real –and Team Beckham rushed to stress it was sent in the heat of the moment.
There had been a High Court injunction in place to stop the publication of the leaked emails, but this effectively became pointless when multiple European news outlets, acting outside the court’s jurisdiction, published them anyway.
Sir David was knighted last week after being recognised in the King’s Birthday Honours and described the day at Windsor Castle as his “proudest moment”.
He told the PA news agency: “I’ve been very obviously lucky in my career to have won what I’ve won and done what I’ve done but to receive an honour like this, of a knight, is beyond anything that I ever thought that I would receive.
“To be honest, a young boy from the East End of London, born in Leytonstone, and here at Windsor Castle, being honoured by His Majesty the King – the most important and the most respected institution in the world – it’s quite a moment.”
BBC shuts down reports of plans to axe Strictly Come Dancing’s Sunday results show
Sixth celebrity eliminated from Strictly Come Dancing 2025
Where are the Shirley Valentines today?
John Laws death: Veteran broadcaster called Australia’s ‘Golden Tonsils’ dies aged 90
Alex Kingston reveals condition that made her Strictly paso doble ‘difficult’
Strictly’s Balvinder Sopal ‘lost a part’ of herself after beloved mum’s death
