How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - Richard Bacon - ‘I Was Betrayed By My Best Friend’

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

What connects Barack Obama, a tabloid sting and Love Islander Alex George? Have a Blue Peter badge if you were thinking of Richard Bacon... While the broadcaster and producer is perhaps best known for the time his Blue Peter contract was terminated - following a tabloid reveal of his cocaine use - there is so much more to the man. His storied time in television led to him founding a production company and creating numerous TV shows on both sides of the Atlantic. He credits this restless creativity to his ADHD, a diagnosis he only received later in life. We discuss how neurodivergence fuels him; how the cocaine exposé in the 90s impacted who he is; his relationship with his parents; his failed move to America, landing an interview with Barack Obama... and being tracked by the Secret Service. Richard talks movingly about being an addict, going to AA, his failure to quit drinking and a near-death experience that could have been averted by a certain doctor on Love Island. Trust me, an hour with Richard Bacon is quite the ride - strap in! IN THIS EPISODE: 00:00 Intro 03:57 Defining Success Today 04:15 Botox Water And Moisturizer 05:32 Parents And Upbringing 10:05 ADHD Intelligence 11:38 Blue Peter Cocaine Exposé 21:06 Fallout Press And Shame 25:42 Dad Crying in Secret 26:35 Public Humiliation to Resilience 29:01 Trust After Betrayal 30:05 America Move 32:37 Woody Harrelson 33:30 Obama Interview Whiplash 35:36 Work as Identity and Failure 37:53 Addiction Coma and Gratitude LINKS + MENTIONS: Richard’s podcast ‘Why Are You More Successful Than Me?’ is available now Join the How To Fail community: www.howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Elizabeth’s Substack: www.theelizabethday.substack.com WANT MORE? Claudia Winkleman – swap.fm/l/Q65AatVGMWgB27BoS0g2 LOVE THIS EPISODE? Subscribe on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts Leave a 5⭐ review – it helps more people discover these stories Follow How To Fail & Elizabeth: Instagram: @elizabday TikTok: @howtofailpod Podcast Instagram: @howtofailpod Website: www.elizabethday.org Guest bookings for How To Fail only come from official @sonymusic.com emails Elizabeth and Richard answer listener questions in our subscriber series: www.howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content Have a failure you’re trying to work through for Elizabeth to discuss? Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Engineer: Matias Torres Assistant Producer: Shania Manderson Senior Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Alex Lawless Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And it comes out the fax machine and I can see this. I think it said, Blue Peter presenter is a cocaine snorting sneak. They were like, oh no, Dr. Alex would be perfect for this, but he's on Love Island. I'm not right, he's getting off with people in a hot tub instead of saving my life. They're still daydream a lot about stopping drinking.

It's a very hard one because I like it so much, but it's caused me a lot of problems in my life. This episode of How to Fail is brought to you by Dove Whole Body Deodorant. And welcome to How to Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. This is the podcast that believes we don't all fail the same, but we do all fail. And it's about what we learn from it that counts. Before we get started on today's episode,

please do remember to like, follow and subscribe because it really, really helps other people find the show. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working. together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent

on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. The Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus. Starring Emmy Rossum, Furious follows FBI agent Alice Blum. on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer. Both walk their own paths toward justice. And as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur. Don't miss the three-episode premiere of the Hulu original series Furious on July 27th,

only on Hulu on Disney Plus. Richard Bacon is a broadcaster and producer who began his career making tea at BBC Radio Nottingham before graduating to a three, year stint as a news reporter, during which time he interviewed Nicole Kidman and covered a story on sunburned pigs. In 1997, he landed a sought-after job as a presenter on the flagship children's TV show Blue Peter, only for his contract to be terminated a year later, following a tabloid reveal of his cocaine use. An incident he describes now as still making me feel ashamed. But Bacon rebuilt his career, going on to present hit radio and

TV shows on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2023, he launched his own production company, Yes Yes Media, establishing himself as an inventive and influential TV format creator. The show's Bacon develops tend to be both smart and quirky, including Silence is Golden, in which comedians try to make an audience laugh and money is deducted from a prize pot every time anyone sniggers. This inventiveness is a product, perhaps, of his ADHD. Diagnosed at the age of 42, Bacon links his neurodivergence to his creativity

and hyper-focused idea generation. But it's also a symptom of his desire to find out just what makes us all tick. As evidenced by his latest project, a podcast, Why are you more successful than me? In which Bacon interviews guests such as Gary Linneker,

Amanda Botton, and, well, me, about what really drives them. Success fascinates us all, Bacon says. I want to understand what it actually is and how it really happens. Richard Bacon, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you. What a wonderful introduction.

Oh, thank you. It's thoughtful. And in my podcast, I just make one up after the event. But it's quite interesting when somebody lays out your career like that. Well, I felt bad about my story. mentioning Blue Peter, but it is one of your failures. So then I felt okay about it. Because I do, I mean, we'll come onto it. But I really admire about you, how you have such resilience and you

own things. And so much of your podcast is about that. Yeah. It's about owning your failure as well as your success. Definitely. And it's the Blue Peter thing is it has changed my entire career. And therefore, it's changed my entire life. Without that, I wouldn't be married to the person. married to. I wouldn't have the children I've got. I wouldn't live where I live. This career that you mentioned where I try and invent TV shows, I wouldn't be doing that. I don't know what my life would be in that parallel universe, but every single thing would be different if that hadn't happened on Blue Peter. So to not talk about it would be, it doesn't make any sense. Yes. I appreciate that you've chosen it. Thank you. What does success mean to you?

Yeah, it's such a good question. And I think, to me, I suppose, at the age I'm at now, success is about have you kept it going, can you keep it going, do you still like it, does it still satisfy you? I think professionally that's what it is to me. Such a good answer. Why is your skin so unlined? Is this just genetics? Your skin is online. How are you? I'm younger than me. I'm 47. Oh, only just. I'm clinging on to the three years. You've got no lines. Have you? Have you? Have you? Yeah. Yeah. Have you? No. Wow. Wow. I would say I don't have children and I drink a lot of water You don't have children who drink lots of water

Yeah I think children is quite ageing Yeah and water is amazing for keeping you looking young I think when I was on Blue Peter they brought in For some reason at a skincare company This is like this is now 27 years ago Brought into a moisturiser And this sounds completely mad No they let me, they wanted me to test them

And they brought me like five or six different ones And I used them And I enjoyed putting moisturiser on my face so much that I've done it about three times a day for 27 years. I find it really satisfying. And so maybe there's a consequence to that that's positive because I drink too much alcohol and I've led a life of,

it's not always been the healthiest life. So it's surprising. I don't look more like Keith Richards. Well, that's a great addiction for you to have, an addiction to moisturise it. Yeah, great if that was the only one. Well, come on to that too. I'm fascinated by your parents.

Oh, good. Yeah. Your dad was a criminal defence lawyer. And your mother was a nurse. She had a really difficult childhood. She did. She wasn't a nurse. She worked at my dad's law firm.

Oh, that's on the internet. I don't know. But she worked on my dad's law firm when she was young. They are both really interesting. My dad now is very nearly blind. And he's got, I think, called retinitis pigmentosa, which takes away your peripheral vision. It's quite a cruel one.

It's very slow. I mean, I remember my dad's 40th. and even then if you put your hand out to shake his hand, he wouldn't know it was there. So I'd always have to say to him, oh, Steve put his hand out and he would shake his hand and he wouldn't tell people about it for a long time. Now he's got a white stick.

Now I think he should get a guide dog. This has been a long process. He's got 2% vision in one eye and nothing in the other eye. So if you imagine, it's a very interesting thing, retinitis pigmentosa. It's what took away Chris McCorsland's sight, you know, the comedian. Yes.

But it's like looking, basically, if you imagine, looking through a straw from one eye. That's how my dad sees the world. And a brilliant man and a kind man. My mum is fascinating, charismatic, an addict. Her dad was awful. She had a really complicated childhood where she just wanted stability.

And I think the reason, talk about success. I think the reason I now look at my mum as being a success is her life growing up in a pub, in a mining community called Blidworth in Nottinghamshire was chaotic because Jack her dad was just not a good person at all. And really a horrible person, which is a funny thing to say about your own granddad, but it's just true.

And I think what she desired was to have a family instability. And so when I look at my mum and I think, okay, you had three kids, we're all close, they're still married. That is a great measure of success, I think, if you're her from that background. And my dad is a criminal defence lawyer. He was involved, I mean, he had a small hand in, Ian Huntley's defense?

I mean, it doesn't mean he thinks Ian Huntley, but it's part of the process of the law. There was a woman called Ruth Neve who was, she was accused of killing her son, and he got her off. And I remember when he got her off, he came home, and when you're a defense lawyer, you're quite pleased, even if you've... I was following

the case, thinking, Della, think you've got off a murderer who killed her own son, and he came home, and he's in a good mood, and he was celebrating, because that was his job. And I remember thinking, this is a weird job, Dad's got. I think he's got a child murderer off. years later through DNA evidence it turned out that she was innocent and he was right all along but he's had

handing some really interesting criminal defence cases including the Wheely Bin murderer. Don't go thinking the Wheely Bin murderer killed wheelie bins. He killed people and put them in wheelie bins. It's important Elizabeth it's an important distinction.

clip this for social media it's going to get high engagement. It is important. How aware were you? I mean, it sounds like you were a little bit aware of his work. But with Ian Huntley, would he talk about that? Yeah, but he wasn't in Huntley's main defence. He was just brought in.

He knew very well, I think the QC who was representing in Huntley, and he was brought into the case and was there when a lot of it was happening. But I was aware, we're from a town called Mansfield, which is quite high crime rates. And when I was growing up, there's a point when it had, I think, about the same murder rate as New York. Like, it was around the time of the we'd have been murdered. I don't know why I'm just going to be like.

Nothing. But around that time. And he's from a very working-class family. He tells a story about him and his three brothers and his mum and dad one Christmas going down to, I think it was one shilling, which I looked up in it. I think in today's money it was like 5P. So he was the only one of his family to go to university.

And they were very like new middle class, my parents, if you know what I'm mean by that. And that was all very interesting. Like he got, he had a BMW with a private reg plate. You know, he wanted the trappings of I've come from. a working class family and now I've got somewhere else. But his work was always interesting. It is a branch of law that's endlessly fascinating

and he worked so hard. He still does some work, but he worked so hard. I mean, his work, I hope I work hard. His work ethic, the phone would go in the middle of the night and it would be someone who'd been arrested at Mansfield Police Station and he would run down there and represent them and it would wake us all up on school nights. But to him, any work that came his way,

he would just automatically take it. You never forget where you come from in that respect. Yeah. You are very clever. Do you feel that your intelligence has been valued or respected in the way that you might want it to be? That's an interesting question. I don't really know how to answer that because I don't know. I hope I'm clever.

I think, yeah, I've got a fast-moving brain. I've got a very ADHD brain. Do you know what? At school, I was confident. I wasn't particularly well behaved. I didn't work hard enough at it. And this funny thing, I didn't, in my house, we didn't read enough. And I remember kind of at school, like my daughter's currently, reads a bit slowly,

she's getting better at it. And I remember the thing I was quite slow at reading. And then in my 20s, I was working on the big breakfast with people like Johnny Vaughn. And all the people I worked with there, they were so clever. Johnny just seems to know every single fact in the whole world. Ed Foresdick, the late exec producer, had been to Oxford and I was surrounded by people with so much knowledge

and I just started reading and reading and reading. And I suddenly started reading quicker. And whereas I think I would have assumed knowing what I know now that I was dyslexic at school, but I actually got over it. So I don't know how to explain what that was. And I read quick and then when I was on Five Live, I did notice I could read something quick,

taking the information and keep it all on my head and just use it straight away. And I did start to think, oh, maybe, you know, maybe I am quite intelligence, but I've never overly thought of myself that way. Well, I think you're very intelligent. You have a very, very interesting mind. Oh, thanks. If you've been sitting on a business idea, Shopify makes it unbelievably easy to make it real.

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I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man, brand-new day. In theaters, July 31st. This episode is brought to you by L'Oreal Group. Beauty is a powerful force that moves us. That's why L'Oreal Group has built a business that is inclusive at its heart with 100% of its brands, championing diversity. With 25,000 professional opportunities for people under 30 worldwide,

and 54% of leading positions held by women. Diversity is a strength that helps Loreal Group create the best beauty products for all people. Visit Loreal.com to learn more. Let's talk about your first failure. Yeah. Being publicly fired from Blue Peter after an expose in the News of the World for taking cocaine.

Now, I didn't know this bit. The cocaine bit. No, I knew that bit, don't worry. The News of the World bit. No, that it was your best friend who sold the story. Yeah, yeah, it was. I'd worked with him at Radio Nottingham And yeah, what happened was, well, what happened was, I took some cocaine.

Were you taking cocaine regularly? No, I had taken it before that. It is, do you know what I noticed at the time? Other people got caught up in that. And, you know, you'd see other people get done for that. And it'd always go, I didn't do this. I didn't, they'd always go, that was my first time. I remember thinking, really, really?

The first time you ever took it happens to be the time you got caught. It really makes any kind of sense. The first time I took it was in a nightclub called Browns in Covent Garden with that guy that you alluded to, whose name I'm not going to use. But we were best mates and he got a wrap of it. And I took the whole wrap at once, which I didn't really understand it. And I threw up. But I had taken it a handful of times before that.

And he, I think he was jealous of me. So I did 20 months on Blue Peter. Pretty much the same out of time, Kier's. Stama was Prime Minister. Which is now a long term these days. These days, much longer than Liz Trust. Yes.

And we went out. I shouldn't have done that. Blue Peter was such a big opportunity and I loved the job and I still really respect it as a program and you were in these massive studios and you were flying around the world.

It was an incredible job to have at 21 to the age of 22. and we had a big night out and took a load of drugs and then I where was I it was Blue Peter's 40th anniversary at the Natural History Museum and I came out and I came out with Karen Keating who's now passed away who I used to fancy so much when she was hosting Blue Peter before I was a host myself

and I walked out of the Natural History Museum with her and Anthea Turner and there was a photographer there, paparazzi style photographer, and he was only taking pictures of me. And I said, well, that's weird, because there's Anthea Turner,

and there's Karen Keating, and there's me, and he's not, and I was like, oh, there, and he wasn't interested. And he followed me down the street, and he followed me into a taxi. And so I was like,

that, there's something not right here, something's wrong, and I didn't know what it was. And I suppose in my mind, I thought, shit, you know, you sometimes take drugs and you shouldn't. The next morning,

I called my agent, a guy called John Holmes, really legendary agent, and he was working with a recent former editor of the son called Stuart Higgins, and he was doing PR for all of John's clients. He had some really good clients like Gary Lineckor and people. And so he'd hired a good PR guy. And I said, look, John, something weird has happened. So he got Stuart Higgins to call me. And I said, Stuart, I don't get it.

And he went, okay. And by now it's Saturday morning. And he went, okay. He says, let me do some digging. I'll start with the news of the world. know the editor, I'll call him. I'm going, okay. I didn't, obviously, I'm not expecting him to come back and go, oh, yeah, it's the news of the world. And my dad, and remember he was a criminal defence lawyer, and this, taking cocaine is about breaking the law.

And he was at my little flat in Chiswick, which he since bought off me and still owns side detail, Elizabeth, not relevant to the story. But I, I always divert. No, marker of success, though, given what we were talking about. Yes. And we were decorating it. and so we went to be in Q just between Chiswick and it's not being Q

not Halfers and it's going to come Homebase Oh my God it's home base How did you do that? I was just visualising the Onesworth roundabout Which used to have a home base on it

Now RIP Not there anymore So I went to home base Between Chisick and Richmond with him To pick some paint For the living room of my flat in Chisick And we picked Midnight Mist Nice

Yeah good choice And then on the way back, I'm in the passenger seat. He's driving when he could still drive. And my phone went and it was Stuart Higgins. And I answered it and I went, hi, Stuart. My dad's next to me. And he just went, it's news of the world, cocaine and lots of it. That was the exact words.

So I'm like, and dad's next to me. And I went, okay. Okay, all right, Stuart. I'm going to call you back. Okay, all right. See in a bit. And my dad was like, who's that? I went, no one.

And went back to the flat. I was like, well, I'll have to tell him. And then he started painting the wall with the midnight mist. And then I thought, oh, Alison, I think, I went outside to call Stuart back. What he meant by lots of it was lots of copy, as in it's going to be a big spread in the news of the world the next day. So I was like, fucking, I better tell him. And I sort of told him, I didn't quite understand it. And I called my mum, and they just couldn't really process it at the time.

And so that night, I was first. faxed a copy of it. God, that's back in the days of a fax machine. I went around to Stuart Miles flat, near my flat. It was a blue Peter presenter at the time. And it comes out the fax machine. And I can see this. I think it said, Blue Peter presenter is a cocaine snorting sneak, I think. Goody, goody blue Peter presenter is a cocaine snorting sneak. What sneak even means? And you can see it laid out. And I read it. And Stuart Higgins had said to me, actually, let's just rewind before that. Stuart called me back and he said, he said, the person that's done this to you, you've spoken to them today.

So this is the Saturday, right? So now we've done the, told me with my dad, I've got news. And after the Stewart had called me, I'd called my best friend because that's what you do. And I'm shit, I'm in trouble. And he was like, oh my God, that's awful. twist in like a thriller Stuart Higgins then says whoever did this to you

you spoke at him today and I was like well it's not my dad is it it's not the bloke who works at home base who saw me midnight missed it was like a twist and I thought well it's him and I said to you

how do you know and he said because because she was so close to the editor at the time he goes because he's called the editors told me he's called him worried he's called him worried so that

really went wrong for my friend in that sense. And so I didn't, I didn't call him back straight away. Obviously in time I let him know that I knew and then he denied it. But it was denying it. I knew it was him. I'd found out because I happened to have a PR who'd recently edited the son, who knew the editor of the news of the world. And that was, and so that was fascinating and really surprising.

We really were best friends. I drove to the house of the editor of Blue Peter. called Oliver McFarlane, nice guy who'd given me the job. And he was on this little housing estate and I got there and then it knocked on the door. I told him I was coming, tell him about four.

His wife answered. She said, come in Richard. And I sat in the living room with him and his wife. And there's such nice people. I think he went on to working like BBC classical music. Very kind of lovely, quite jolly BBC, very, very good man.

And she brought me like a cup of tea and a cake. This is now late Saturday. And I went, look, got some bad news. It's going to be the news of the world tomorrow. for taking cocaine. And she said, oh, everyone smokes that these days. And I thought, oh, she's got all the drugs. Either she means weed or crack.

And neither is correct. And so I was like, okay. I said, no, I said, I don't think they do. And I think it's really serious. And I think, you know, you're going to have to let me go. And then I was summoned to what was called East Tower at Television Center, which no longer exists. And I got in the lift to go and see Lorraine Hegasie,

who was the head of children's BBC. And I got in the lift with the head of HR. just coincidentally, she got my contract in her hand. And so you know what's coming. And I knew I'd have to go anyway, because by now it's Sunday and it's in the paper. Back then, the Sunday newspapers used to come out first at King's Cross. Yes.

Do you know that? It's true, isn't it? It is true. They would go to main stations because then they'd be taken to other parts of the country. And so you could always get the first copies. That would be the reason that they were taken on the trains to other places. So, yes, it's quite well known.

I mean, these days, I barely read a newspaper. But back then I was very interested in them. I was like, yeah, so I drove to King's Cross to get the news of the world, to see myself in it. And so, yeah, I went up to see Lorraine Hegasie and, you know, I said, yeah, I've got to go. She said, you've got to go. Then I had to hand him my badge. It's like leaving the LAPD. I have to hand him your badge.

Your Blue Peter badge. I could no longer get in free to the Motor Museum of Uly. To Mad Anto Swords. Yeah, I couldn't get free to Mantu's swords anymore. But you've got a badge back haven't. I got it. Yes. Some 20 years later or something.

Yeah, and it's a quite sweet circular thing. Yeah. The 40th is where it. it all collapsed. And then I got invited back to the sixth, I got invited to the 60th. And Peter Purvis in front of all the other Blue Peter presenters off camera, but he pinned one on me in front and he said, all is forgiven and all the other Blue Peter presenters applauded. There's so much I want to ask you about this particular experience for you, but I also just want to salute Blue Peter for a bit. Yeah, do. Because there'll be people watching or listening to this podcast who

don't understand what cultural value it had, how important it was for us. Yeah. I grew. I grew up with that show, I had a Blue Peter badge, it was my prize possession. I loved Janet Ellis, Simon Groom and Peter Duncan with the passion. It was the thing that my sister and I watched when we got back from school. It really shaped us as individuals. It got us into crafting and double-sided sticky tape and it taught us so much and it was such an iconic show. And I know it's still going. Obviously, I don't still watch it, but it carried such weight that when you lost your job, Lorraine Hegacy herself went on Blue Peter and announced it.

It was huge. It was really treated in such a big way. And I know Lorraine, obviously, and I've seen her since. I find it a tiny bit questionable, that one in hindsight. So it was between Newsround and Blue Peter. So Newsround was on at 5 until 10 past 5. Blue Peter started at 510. And so on the Monday, the show was back and it was live.

and she decided to go on air herself from her office and make a statement like the prime minister during COVID or something like it was quite strange and I remember watching it thinking this is children's TV they don't even know there's a head of children's TV so she goes on TV on the head of it like it doesn't you don't mean anything to them

and it was quite funny but she did she said Richard does not only let himself down he's like all of you down badly I remember and I remember my mum really judging her going, she really obviously wants to be the centre of attention, which if you know, my mum is sure. It's the ultimate criticism.

No, no, she likes that too. Okay. I don't, it wouldn't be that big now. It's hard to understand why it was so big. It was, I remember going to a place called Belsight Park and I went to hiding because there was so many press outside that little flat. There's just so many photographers outside my house. just so many

like I was fucking Princess Diana or something it was just like why or what you're all doing here I had this car a strange car and it was a convertible but when you converted it the roof went into this electronic boot and it was quite a slow process and I came out my house I just do all these

tropics everywhere and I had to put my bag in the boot and to open the boot it just opened really slowly and I put the key in it just so slow and they're all gathered around me and I'm like fucking speed up. And they're all throwing questions at me. I'm like, come on,

just getting up and just squeeze the bag in. Once the bag's in, you turn the key to the other one and he goes, just really slowly. I thought, I can't stay here. So I hid with the guy called Mitch, who was the voiceover artist on live and kicking. I was in what was famous then, a pub called the Haverstock Arms on the Wednesday or Thursday night of that week. Chris Evans, who I now know, I didn't know there,

and was talking about me on Virgin Radio the whole time. He invited me on TFI Friday. I mean, he talked about me, like for the whole, back when he was like that, the whole week, he said things like half the BBC are on drugs, which he didn't really mean, but I was on his show reason. I reminded him of that statement and he looked nervous. And I was with Chris Moyles. I was getting to know him who wasn't even famous at the time. And we're in this place called the Haverstock Arms, quite a show busy pub at the time. But then someone said to me, they're talking about you on question time.

And someone else went, Andrew, who ran it, who was the barman from TFI Friday, ran the real pub. And he went, let's put it on. So we put it on and the whole pub stopped and watched question time and every time someone made a comment in my favour the pub applauded

and every time someone said a comment against me the pub booed so John Redwood said I should go to prison and the whole pub and ooh so it actually became quite a weird

cartoony surreal experience when John Redwood is on the other side you know you're doing something right exactly yeah tell me about your experiences of shame I mean it sounds like

you had a good network around you where you were able to recalibrate quite quickly, which I think is an admirable quality. But the shame, I imagine, lingers for a long time. Well, the biggest shame about it, I can explain that quite simply really, which is it was actually some time later. I don't know how much time later, but my mum told me it was the only time that she'd heard my dad cry ever. And he's just from that generation that doesn't. And he, I mean, his own dad came out of World War II, didn't show emotion. My dad doesn't know what he's like. And he cried, and it was on the Monday morning. So the news of the world comes out on a Sunday, and this is now

Monday morning. He's got to go to court where he works, as we've established. And he went into the shower to cry. So it went into the shower and then he turned on the shower so that she wouldn't hear him cry. So he didn't want her to know. And she didn't tell me at the time. She left it quite a while, to be honest. But she said it's, you know, I mean, even to this day, it's just the only time I've ever heard him cry. So when she told me that story, I felt a deep sense of shame. How do you feel about that period of your life now? Because I'm aware that, you know, it's 28 years later. We're still talking about it. You do a great job of bringing it up, I think, before other people do. Yeah. How do you think it's shaped you for good and for bad?

It was quite a public humiliation. I was young, you know, so I was actually still 22 when it happened. You know, I've been through a few other bad things, some that have been public and some that haven't. And I think I am quite resilient. I think that I can kind of, I think I've, I was aware at the time when that thing was happening. Like there were points when it was awful. And then it kind of became so cartoony in ways because of the Chris Evans and the Chris Moyles and the question time and all that stuff. There was a blue Peter presenter, producer, who told me I'd never working television again, which wasn't very helpful and not accurate. But there was a point when I thought, I was aware consciously that I was dealing,

this is a few days later, I was aware consciously that I was dealing with it quite well. I was like, okay, this is interesting. Almost like my internal dialogue. Okay, you've worked, you can see it, you've contextualized it, you've understood it, I was on top of it somehow and that was interesting and you know there were sad moments I remember watching Blue Peter a few weeks later

just missing them all going oh she was still there missing Karen Keating yeah missing everyone from Blue Peter I loved the job it was a great job but I made me quite resilient so I think when I've been through other things that have been hard I think I've got through them better

because of what happened then it is a young age to go through something in that public And for it to, you know, for my mum and dad, being both from working class backgrounds, but being uni middle class and, you know, getting a car with a number plate, there's private reg and all that,

is, you know, they were very, very, very proud that their son was on Blue Peter because it's a very middle class show in its own right. And so it was a big deal, you know, in their heads. My mom was just walking around the supermarket, telling people someone's on Blue Peter. So for them, it was a big, big crash for that to come down. I got a job on the big breakfast about three months later

where the host had been in prison for dealing cocaine. And it was a place that really taught me about ideas and it just really suited my brain and it changed the course. So it changed absolutely everything. Did it leave you with trust issues after being betrayed by your best friend? know, maybe a bit. I mean, there was another guy, actually, who I was friendly with who was giving quotes about me to the newspaper I confronted. There was a bit of that going on. There's a bit of what you're doing that for. Yes, I suppose it did, but not as much as it should have

done, I think, is how I'd describe it. Sometimes when you go through a trauma, it impacts you in ways that you can understand and it impacts you in ways you can't understand. But you do get yourself back to a place once you're through it where you feel the same as you did before it as in I think we need to do that do you know what to mean by that when you when you come out of pain you want to get back to your happy place and life to be like it was before so I didn't have too much trust issues because I think as a young man I just wanted my life to get back to because I was happy before and I wanted to see the world in the same way so maybe it didn't affect trust issues as much as it should have done electric 2026 Subaru Trail Seeker is the EV for the Trail Obsessed, with up to 444 kilometers

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high interest savings account. Always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest. Conditions apply. Visit scotiabank.com slash h-I-SA to learn more. Scotia Bank. You're richer than you think. I'm Kai Wright. I'm Emmanuel Jochi, and we're the host of Big Lives.

This June for Pride, Check out our episodes about some of our culture's biggest queer icons. Like David Bowie, whose gender-bending TV performance seduced the world. The enduring power of Kylie Minogue. And Star Trek legend George Taked on the biggest challenge of his life. And don't miss our earlier episodes on George Michael, Richard Pryor, Liza Minnelli, and Little Richard. Listen to Big Lives, wherever you get your podcast. Your second failure.

Okay. Which is moving to the States for a TV show, which fell apart due to, due to VIII. Visa issues. Yeah, that's true. That's true. The, um, you would think the visa issue was because of what happened on Blue Peter. Um, it wasn't. I, I moved to America.

My wife and I wanted to, we just wanted to live in Los Angeles for a bit. And it wasn't really well thought through the, the, the moving to America thing. It was, it was just, we wanted to do it. And so I pitched a show to a network over there, BBC America. That was, there was going to be me interviewing celebrities who'd done really well in America in their favorite city and they would take me on a tour of the city and it got commissioned. And I got that and I got another job over there

which was about, it was for a cable network and it was about going around the country talking to people who believe in UFOs, getting them drunk and telling them and they're wrong. And it was like really funny idea. Literally it's like they've got to get them drunk. I said this sounds amazing. It's like sort of Louis through John Rontam, but drunk. I was like

fucking great. So I quit my job on Five Live and I rented my house out in London and rented a house in Los Angeles and Ricky Jervais was the first guest and that phrase in TV rigged where you put loads of cameras somewhere he was going to take me from his apartment

in a car we'd rigged with cameras to the zoo because he loves animals to the venue where he did his first stand-up gig in New York to his favourite restaurant and we'd rigged it all with this production company I'd chosen to make it and then something went wrong with the visa nothing to do with what I was talking about a minute ago

because by now I'm being completely transparent it's all fine but it just got held up up and they got my passport and they wouldn't give it back to me. There was a computer failure. And I couldn't get on the plane. I just couldn't get on the plane. And Ricky was already there.

So we had to collapse the show. And it cost so much money to collapse the show that we couldn't get it back on its feet again. And so then I lost the other one as well in that process. And it was just a mad timing issue in the way that luck goes against you. And it was really anxiety-inducing. I was like, sorry, hang a minute. I've quit my job, which is a good one. I'm going to America

it's already a half-baked plan it's not like I wasn't like James Corder and they'd host a talk show I was just trying to get some things going and that fell away and I said oh my God and so that was difficult did you have kids at this stage

yeah they were they were nearly one and three well that is tough yeah and you had it says here I'm not saying this that you had no meaningful work for a year yeah pretty much yeah and were you in the UK still during that year or did you actually end up going I rented my house.

I'd already done the contract on my house, which in a cartoon world, I'd rented out to Woody Harrelson. Had you actually? Yeah. Oh my God. No, it's a lovely guy. We became friends through it.

Lovely. It was really sweet. He came to my house and he was like, he looked around my house and he went, hey man, he goes, I want to be friends with your friends. So I introduced him to my friends. And then I went to America and I'd see him at my friend's dinner parties.

It's like you rented out your entire life to Woody House. Yeah, I did, yeah. He's everything you would hope. He's wonderful. So I just went over there and, and didn't really have any work. And that was strange. Because I've always worked since I was 17 and worked a lot.

And so that was really strange. And then I ended up, I've got really good agents over there, CAA, and I've been with them for ages now. They represent my company now. But I just at the last minute got a job in New York, hosting a show. And actually, I was about to move back

and I got that job. And then in a sort of crazy twist of fate, my first day's filming that I ever did in America, was I interviewed Barack Obama who was still the president in the dying days of his presidency. We went for a hike in Newsemit. It's still the fucking president.

That was my first day. But I had a year of not working and then I was like, okay, we'll stay for a bit. What was Barack Obama like? I mean, I just like to expect it was... I mean, first of all, I got a call from the head of comms at the network that was working for

and he went, just so you know, you're being monitored by the Secret Service. and I had quite a big night out in New York the night before and I was like, I was in a hotel room, I was looking around the room going, we're just, they weren't monitoring me last night, were they? Does it start now? When's it start? And he went, because you're interviewing the president next Saturday. I was like, okay.

And he landed for the interview in Marine One in his helicopter. We walked around these redwood trees and there were these people with machine guns tracking backwards behind us. Yeah, I mean, I didn't, it was all. so planned. I went to the White House to meet a load of his team before I even met him. I went to the, you know, the Oval Office and the cabinet room, stood at the door of the situation room. It's quite wild.

Wow. But having had no work to the epicentre of America. And they invited me that. He wasn't there when I went there. I went to the wild when he wasn't there. And they were just, oh, come on, we'll show you around. It was wild. And then he was, I mean, he was exactly the same. I didn't do much small talk with him. In at the beginning, his microphone broke. And it was just, there was a

point when he was like, I had to meet him at the stream and his mic and his mic and his had to change his mic and Secret Service were getting nervous. And we were doing this small talk because it was a quick, it was very tightly choreographed. You know, he arrives, you do the interview, he leaves. But I just remember he went, here, Richard. And because I'd seen like the West Wing, he started talking like with the West Wing. Hello, Mr. President. And then it was, you know what, it was all it was, it was an interview about the Centenary of America's Park Service. Do you smell nice? Yeah, he smelled really nice. Okay. Talk to me about work and identity. Do you think this experience was salutary for being able to separate the two or is work still very much who you are?

What do you mean? So I conflate my work with my identity. Like who I am is my work. Yeah. And I just wondered whether this experience of not being able to work for the best part of the year. Yeah, that's true. Like who am I? Yeah. It's slightly humiliating. I mean, I've never, I've always been good at generating work. Like I've just, I have, that was the year that I've done. the least amount of work. I hosted one show on ITV in that year that was a failure. And by the way, if you're on more failure, I've hosted quite a lot of failed TV. Yeah, what was that show? What was it called?

It was called Eternal Glory. Shot in Croatia. It was, when the head of ITV eventually saw it, Peter Fincham, he said to me, he said, they told me it was going to be like the Olympics, because it's more like school sports day.

I was like, Okay. Now, I mean, in terms of failure, I've hosted a lot of shows that you won't have heard of. Rent free. Get staffed. Eternal Glory. Sky One's the big idea. 19 keys. I mean, I've hosted a lot of TV shows that have been on network TV in prime time that you've not heard of. But the failure is, you know, it's all part of it, isn't it? It's important. It's interesting. You learn from it. It's funny. But I've always been good at generating work. And so, yeah, to come back to your point or your question in that year, yeah, I was embarrassed.

My kid started school, and my older kid in that year, who's three or four, joined this lovely school in L.A. called Wagon Wheel. And I remember I was jealous of him because he had a routine. He was going to school, doing some work. I put his hand in paint, but, you know, doing some work. And coming back and I was like, oh, this is like, I was jealous. because I'd never had a period of not working. And so, yes, it absolutely is my identity.

I think about work all the time. Your final failure is... I hope it's my final. You're likely. For this show. For the purposes of this podcast. Your third failure, yes, is failing to beat addiction. Yeah, that's true, yeah.

How courageous of you to choose to talk about this. I really appreciate you being this open because I think so many people will relate to it. And this is specifically to do with drink. Yeah, it is. I should have been in it really, and I still daydream a lot about stopping drinking. It's a very hard one because I like it so much,

but it's caused me a lot of problems in my life, and you don't take cocaine without drinking. So there are times when it's caused problems at home, it certainly caused problems professionally. I would have been a better host if I'd got on top of it. I don't, I don't, I'm much better now. I drink less now, but I still really drink more than I should and really I should stop.

And I've been, I've been thinking about it a lot lately. There's an alcohol doctor I see and he's really helpful. I actually take some medication each day, which means that when I have alcohol, it interacts with my brain less. Now, the simpler thing would be to just not drink at all. But it's caused me problems and, you know, when I think about, like I like going to the gym, I really like going to gym. And I'm in okay shape, but when I look in the mirror, I'm like,

oh, why is relative to how much work I do? Why don't I look better? It's like, oh, yeah, because of how much you drink. And why didn't I sleep well last night? Oh, it's because if you drink. And it's when you weigh up the problems that it's caused or the things it's set back or the things it's maybe not good enough at, I should have stopped.

And I've been through periods of stopping. I've been through periods of alcoholics and on a, and I still haven't stopped and I still like it and that's because I was drinking last night and I was like enjoying myself and I should and I don't, I should really I should and I should have done by now. I'm interested in where the should comes from

do you think you are an alcoholic? Yeah, basically, an addicts, yeah. Yeah, I've been to AA a lot of times and part of the premises, that's what you say, you know, I'm Richard and I'm a woman. I'm an alcoholic. So I suppose so. It's not like I can, you know, I probably won't drink today,

but I'll probably drink tomorrow. I wasn't going to drink yesterday, but then the football was on. You know, it's all that kind of stuff. Yes, I would say, I'm certainly saying I'm an addict. And I think it probably correlates with ADHD. My grandfather, who I mentioned earlier, who wasn't very nice, died of alcoholism. my mom, you know, has a very strong relationship with alcohol. When I got my ADHD diagnosis, it's a particularly strong form of it.

You can see it on a brain scan. The blood flow to my prefrontal cortex is so slow. It's like there's this dark patch on my brain. And what I learned about ADHD is a lot of people with it will use alcohol or stimulants to sort of make up for the fact. Even though you don't know it at the time, the blood flow is moving too slowly here. So there's a correlation between all of that, I think. And then I, the other thing is, and this is probably the wrong way to look at it.

I love thinking about ideas so much. It makes me so happy. And sometimes I get more into a zone if I had a couple of drinks. And that's a, I think that's a dangerous way to think. Because then what you're telling yourself is, oh, I can only do my job if I drink. And it's not true. But sometimes it feels helpful. So, but relative to my relationship to it and problems it's caused in the past, I should have stopped.

I'm so sorry this is a struggle. Yeah, I mean, it is a struggle. I mean, at the moment, I'm not causing any problems at all. I don't drink every day. I don't ever read like I'm drunk at all. I don't go out late. I'm not, so I'm not causing any problems at all at all, but, you know, I should stop. I read something that you said about why you drink, and you've explained it so well there,

but you also said you don't drink to numb, you drink when you're excited and happy. Run towards you not run away from. Yes. I remember a friend of mine saying to me, what you're running away from? I don't know. I think I'm running towards it. I think there is, if something's bothering me, if I've got bad news, if something at work is really making me anxious, which absolutely happens, I do not reach for a drink. it's just much less appealing.

My danger zone is good news. I run towards and not away from. Can we talk about your near-death experience, which wasn't alcohol-related, but I'm interested as to whether it had an impact on then how you thought about your relationship to addiction. It did have an impact on that, for sure. So it's 2018.

It's almost like you were the patient zero of COVID, because it sounds remarkably like COVID, what you had. You ended up in a coma, in a medically induced coma because you had this respiratory issue. Yes, I did. I did. And I got, it basically was a double lung infection.

They think it was an allergic reaction to something, but no one really knew for sure. I was at the time trying to take some medication that actually, a bit like those tablets mean that you drink less. And who knows if it was related to that? We just don't know. And no one could work anything out. but there was it was

a mystery and it happened very quick um I don't know but it filled up the lungs really fast and I was in America I was flying home for the summer I got on the plane

and I was feeling a bit weird and then the altitude meant the cabin pressure was compressing down on my lungs and that made it all worse I didn't know what was happening at the time I just got on a plane and was feeling weird

I was hallucin then I started to loosen And I thought that people on the plane were trying to murder me. And I was so short of breath. It's surprising I didn't die on the plane. And then the plane comes into land and the cabin pressure gets lighter because you're coming into land. And because the cabin pressure was reducing, I started to feel better. I could breathe a bit better. So therefore, your brain goes, like when you go over an illness, your brain goes,

oh, sorry, I'm getting better now, I'll be right. So I was like, I mean, I had to be taken off the plane on a wheelchair, so it wasn't like that good. And I went to my mother-in-law's in Blackheath and I thought, maybe I'm getting over it. And then it got worse again. And then my sister-in-law, Kirsty said, you've got to get to hospital. So I got an Uber to Lewisham. When you go to an hospital and you say you're short of breath, they take it very seriously. And they move really quick.

I said, the only comic bit was at one point they said to me, oh, it's a shame, we've got a doctor who's a bit of a specialist in this stuff, but he's not here. because he's on Love Island. What? Was it Alex George? Oh my gosh. Dr. Alex. Alex from Lewisham.

He wasn't there because he was on Love Island when I think he was becoming famous. They were like, oh no, Dr. Alex would be perfect for this, but he's on Love Island. I'm not going to, he's getting off with people in a hot tub instead of saving my life. It's basically what was happening. And then this consultant who's...

saved my life called Vic. He just appeared in front of me and Rebecca, my wife, and he said, they'd done a chest x-ray, and he's holding it, and he said, we need to put you in an induced coma. And I was like, oh my God, I thought, I thought, well, I didn't take it that seriously. I was like, okay. And I seem to be like, in a couple of hours.

And he said, no, in 20 minutes. He said, to make some phone calls. So being me, I called my, I moved quick. I made a quick call to my my sisters, my mum and dad, my wife's sisters. I moved quick. And then that night

I was supposed to go to the Soho House Festival. And so I emailed Nick's Jones, if you know he is. And I was like, Nick, I can't make it. He'd given me a free ticket. It's the founder of Soho House. I said, I'm going into a coma. Can you give my ticket to somebody else?

And this sounds like, It was like such a twat. Another friend of mine was the chief exec of Fortnum and Mason at the time. In the next day. You invented. No, you invented. You invited me to a dinner in the boardroom.

And I emailed him and youan, I can't make your game dinner in the boardroom of Fortimer because I'm going into a coma. And I just rattled all this off really quickly and then they just put me in a coma. And I found it after it had just been minutes. I mean like four minutes or something. Like all that had happened fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, gone. Then Rebecca was rubbing my feet. she said, don't walk towards the light.

And then I just, then it was all chaos. I mean, they told me afterwards. And another weird story. It must have been two or three months later. I was making a documentary for ITV about immigration and about how if they fully implement Brexit, it's going to ruin immigration. And I went to the hospitals and cameras from ITV

to talk to people to, as in, look how many people from Europe are working in this hospital. you know, anti-Brexit. And then I saw Vic and he was like, he was talking to some students. He kind of looked slightly ashen to see me and I spoke to me. He said, no, no, because we expected you to die.

It was not like you might die. I went to blood oxygen 58. If you go below 60, you know, you die or get brain damage. And I'm not dead. So there's only one of the conclusion there. But it was very dramatic and it was very strange. And they tried to bring me out the coma one day and I became violent and started kicking.

nurses and pulling cables out my neck and alarms were going off and it was really very, very strange. It's definitely made me more impatient, definitely more ambitious than I was before, more driven. He's definitely had a big impact on me in that sense. I think it's when he

told me we expected you to die that landed with me. Rebecca saying hilariously, don't walk towards the light, did you see a light? Was there any of that? No, I mean, when they brought me out the coma, I was just hallucinating. And I remember thinking this doctor had tried to murder me.

And I remember afterwards when it was all over, making a complaint to the hospital, telling them that just so you know when I was in the coma, one of your nurses tried to murder me. But it wasn't like a dream. It's not like, you know that bit when you have a dream and you wake up and there's about a second way you think it was true? It was like that. but it was stay, it was absolutely

utterly, I was convinced that Rebecca at all, it was also in a coma, I was convinced they'd cut

half of her back away. It was all fucking mad. But the only way can explain it is I really, really believed

this stuff. Like I really, really believed that a nurse at Lewisham Hospital who saved my life and were incredible, 40 people worked on me.

I really believed a nurse tried to murder me. So when I made my complain and fucking meant it. And then some years later, just a few months later, read an article in The Guardian by someone had gone into a coma. And it just started by saying, and when I came out my coma, I thought a nurse

had tried to murder me. And I was like, God, is this a thing? But the hallucinations were so horrible when they first tried to bring me out of it. I was kicking people. I was fucking violent. I was like, if they just put me in a second coma, and then the next time, the next time they brought me out,

I was okay. It's so destabilising what you went through. Now, I want to quote one of my favorite lines ever in any interview, and it was an Andrew Billen interview that he did with you, Richard. Yeah, I did need for the times, yeah. And it was after you recovered from this horrendous experience that came out of your coma. And it was this throwaway line, but it said so much. And Rebecca was there, and she asked you, what do you want to eat Richard? And you said Frosties. and then Andrew Binnan just notes, she returns with a bowl of Wheatabix. And that to me just said so much about who she is and your dynamic.

Let me remember that detail. Is she the one who is always sort of looking out for your best interests? Definitely, we're really close. And I really love one. I think being married to me has been really challenging at times for various reasons through ADHD addiction, who I am. But we are a really close couple. and in a way we're closer than we've ever been

and sometimes I think about when I've been annoying I think about God where's the gratitude towards her the way she sat in the hospital in those waiting rooms sometimes with my parents trying to manage the kids

kind of thinking it looks like the hospital are talking to me in a way which makes me think you might actually die leaving her with a God how old were they you know four and six year old I think and she went through a lot. I guess what I'm pleased about is there's something in my nature

and you look at the kid who got fired off Blue Peter for that kind of behavior and who I am and I've had a really fun. My 30s was so fun, but also chaotic. I'm not really the sort of person that I would, if I look at me from over here, would expect to stay married. I think my sort of nature would be, he'll have a couple of marriages

and I don't think I will I just don't think I will I don't think you know this only ends if she leaves me and we met at Capital Radio where I hosted the drive time show and she was head of marketing and we fell in love very quickly as you often do

when you, you know, to the person you marry and it was so exciting and I still feel that way about her now and I would say I would say right now I mean she might tell a different story She's going to have a slightly different perspective on me

because she's not chaotic so for her she will always look at me with a little bit of caution because of that whereas I don't need to look at her with caution because she's steady but I just love her very much and I think when I got that ADHD diagnosis it was in Orange County

at a place called the Aeman Clinic which is pretty much the number one Daniel Aeman is more or less the number one specialist in ADHD ADHD and they put my brain scan on one of those light boxes and you could just see this dark patch at the front because the blood flow was so slow and he looked at it

and even he was kind of shocked and I thought God this I'm in an 80, 88 I'm in a fucking clinic for this thing and he's shocked and he looked at Rebecca and he put his hand on her shoulder and he said this woman is keeping you alive and that isn't why I love her

and it isn't why I'm in love with her but I also think it's true. That was so beautiful and sincere and I could go on talking to you for hours I really, really love the way that you think about failure and success. And thank you so much for sharing what you have with us today. Yeah, thanks.

I've really enjoyed it. You're particularly a good interviewer and you're very much good. You give people space to talk and it's quite useful this sort of thing. There's an element of therapy to conversations like this. It actually does have an immediate impact on you in the present because you've spoken about it. you know, I'll walk out of here and think a bit more about it. And I think a bit more about what I need to adjust and how I can be better and what I'm grateful for. So, you know, it's been a useful conversation, to be honest.

I've really enjoyed it. And I think it's, just selfishly, I think it's been quite an important conversation. Thank you so much. It's an honour to be part of it. Go tell Rebecca you love her. I will. I do. I do it too much in it, and always her.

Oh, ha. Thank you so much. much for listening and watching. This episode has been brought to you by Dove Whole Body Deodorant. Please do follow How to Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts, please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if, like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from

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