John Humphrys didn’t cope so well when he was ambushed by an MP over his jokes about equal pay at the BBC during a live interview on the Today programme.
Humphrys was interviewing Lib Dem deputy leader Jo Swinson on Thursday morning about sexual harassment when she suddenly asked if he had apologised to the BBC’s ex-China editor Carrie Gracie for making light of her resignation over BBC women being underpaid.
She posed the question during a debate over a report about how widespread sexual harassment was in Westminster.
Humphrys interrupted Swinson to say he had emailed Gracie after audio leaked of him joking about her resignation with the BBC’s North America editor Jon Sopel in an off-air exchange.
“I wrote her an email to Carrie Gracie immediately after that exchange,” he said, clearly riled. “Yes, I did as a matter of act. She replied.”
“Quite what this has to do with what we’re discussing I fail to see,” he added.
Swinson joked it wasn’t “the first time a question has been thrown in at the end of an interview”.
“It wouldn’t but they are usually slightly more relevant and this is irrelevant. There you are. I’ve answered your question,” Humphrys said.
The programme then moved on to a segment about woodpeckers.
On Twitter, people condemned Humphrys’ claim that the question was irrelevant.
The Sunday Times’ Lorraine Candy said: “It was relevant and it is relevant.”
Women’s Equality Party co-founder Catherine Mayer said it was “so revealing” that Humphrys saw no connection between his attitude to female colleagues’ pay and sexual harassment.
Barrister Harriet Johnson said Swinson’s question and the subject they were discussed both related to how women were treated at work.
Humphrys’ exchange with Sopel has caused him problems. Tory Minister Tracey Crouch reportedly refused to appear on Today during a round of media interviews in January because of his comments.
He later said whoever leaked it was a “nasty person”.
When ITV News doorstepped Humphrys at his home, he told them that he and Sopel were “winding each other up” during the conversation, which he called a “joke”.
He added it was a “jocular exchange” and called it “complete rubbish” to suggest he opposed equal pay.
Humphrys, 74, earns between £600,000 and £650,000, a report on the broadcaster’s on-air talent’s salary revealed in April, making him the highest paid news broadcaster.
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