Has everyone forgotten Jonathan Ross and Sachsgate?

You’re a private citizen- JR was a celebrity paid literally millions to work for the national public-service broadcaster whose official remit is to inform, educate and entertain in a responsible way.

I hold JR and the BBC to a much higher standard of conduct than you! I was paying his telephone number salary, apart from anything else.

I’m not sure of the state of Andrew Sachs’s health at that stage, but he developed Alzheimer’s Disease as he aged and became wheelchair-bound. I’d hate to think that, if he’d been unable to turn up on the programme, it was because of Ill-health, and that he was pilloried by two oiks because of it.

Stunned at the pps who can’t see what’s wrong with shouting’I fucked your granddaughter’ to this veteran and much-loved performer on a broadcast.

Yuk. I wouldn’t want to be those people.🫩🤮

Apologies - I was wrong about the station - but it was a night time show (9-11pm) so not like it was being listened to by a huge audience. As someone has already commented no-one even complained until weeks later when the Mail picked it up.

I was at work listening too, was definitely r2 as that’s what we all listened to at work in the kitchen !

It was Radio 2, I remember listening to it live whilst I was working and could feel it escalating. It's no excuse but I remember feeling at the time the JR was trying to show off or keep up with the younger and edgier RB.

The only person I have some sympathy for in the whole thing is the granddaughter, who suffered a massive public humiliation. I read that both her grandparents ,(Andrew Sachs and his wife) publicly disowned her for years afterwards which seemed incredibly unfair as she didn't make the calls.

I can't stand Jonathan Ross, horrible man and his chat show is rubbish, no matter who the guests are it's always all about him. Someone must like him though, he keeps getting work.

Image under review but it was radio 2

@Puppylucky

It does show what was considered entertainment at the time and showed at the time what a cesspit the BBC was running. They allowed it to air and only reacted due to the public outcry. JR and RB were their stars at the time. It demonstrated the lack of actual presenting talent these presenters had (or have), relying on crude and - just crude remarks and sexist and misogynist attitudes to women. Lily Allen has accused him in the past of making rape jokes about her (before the sachsgate scandal).

JR has few known female friends in the industry and I suspect there are a lot of things being covered up.

No it wasn't - it was on Russell Brands late night show on 6 music .

I hardly ever post on MN, despite having been here under various usernames since 2006 but I have to about this.

What fascinates me is that on MN, (not so sure about real life) is the collective narrative being that “you are that sort of person if you do XYZ…”

I’m not explaining this well, but it’s like on here, if you do something that is seen as bad or dodgy in some regard, that seems to be who your whole identity is.

However, there is such a thing as mentalizing/non-mentalizing and we can make decisions based on this, rather than being based on some bigger thing, such as it being indicative of the sort of person we are.

For example, if I end up in the yellow box while driving, someone might look at me and think “she’s a selfish driver, the sort of person that ignores the yellow box”. But actually it’s more likely to be because I’m in a rush or a bit distracted that morning, but the previous morning, and the one before that perhaps, I anticipated well and didn’t end up in the yellow box and could therefore sit smugly thinking “I’m not that sort of person”

Does any of that make any sense?!

I think what JR did that night was really thoughtless. But do we know how he thought about it afterwards, or what he thinks about it now? No, we can’t. Does it necessarily tell us “what sort of person he is”? I’m less sure it does. I think he was caught up in the mind of RB and the producers etc who seemed to think it was ok and he lost his own thinking about it. Thoughtless, immature, stupid, yes. But do I think it tells us about him as a whole person? I don’t think so really.

All of us will have done plenty of good and bad things over the course of our lives surely? But MN is another world it seems, where if you do a bad thing then you must live out the rest of your days suffering for it.

Don’t know how relevant this is now but someone up thread said the incident took place on radio 6 live or something? I can’t be 100% sure on this but I know I heard it at the time and I’m pretty sure it was radio 2??

Had it to look up the year, wow. 17 years ago! I was still studying my A-levels. And Lord knows I've made a tonne of mistakes since then.

This is like when siblings remind you of bad stuff you did when you were kids. Like yes it was bad, no I'm not defending it. But it was so many years ago I'm not even the same person mentally - what do you want me to do?!

And that's the problem with society. People want life-term punishments for nonviolent and relatively benign offences. However, they simultaneously expect grace and understanding for their own shortcomings.

I have never voluntarily watched or listed to Jonathan Ross since that incident. Appalling behaviour. Russell Brand? Likewise.

Let’s not help men keep that bar so fucking low. We all make mistakes but I think most of us have never publicly shamed a sexual partner we while embarrassing and insulting their grandparents. It’s not a simple joke that went too far. It wasn’t a private conversation that escaped a WhatsApp or similar. The contempt the incident showed for a woman that Brand had had sex with (but obviously didn’t want to again so who didn’t matter) and the exploitation of someone’s grandparents was gross. There is no problem remembering such incidents and judging them - and there is no worry about it representing cancel culture when he was not cancelled and is not likely to be in a world where men get a more generous judgement than women when it comes to standards of acceptable behaviour.

The full transcript is widely available online for people to judge for themselves. It’s not my responsibility to post it here.

I listened to the incident at the time it was broadcast and I felt very uncomfortable. It made me see Ross differently.

That is good enough.

And that is modern life in a nutshell - I don't remember what actually happened, I can't report anything objectively and factually, but I can tell you how it made me feel and that should be cause for condemnation enough. Oh for some rigour!

I agree with @FuzzyWolf, what a depressing world if we are held to account for something like that forever, meaning we are seen differently and not given any forgiveness. Who wants to live that life? Is it not possible that humans are capable of good and bad behaviour in a lifetime??

I am one of the few people that heard this incident live on the radio, I can’t remember the exact words used, it was two grown men screeching with laughter as they left a answering machine message for an elderly man who had either cancelled his appearance or failed to show up to the radio show (can’t remember the reason they were phoning Andrew Sachs).

Brand was going on and on with Ross calling out in the background and Brand squealing with laughter. I turned the radio off, as it sounded like bullying and humiliation to me which I can’t abide in any shape or form.

I do not remember what was said, just how it made me feel.

It doesn't strike me as a "nasty, hectoring" message, no. Juvenile and inappropriate, but not nasty or hectoring. I am still assuming there must be more, as people seem so sure of that.

Is that not bad enough?

I will say this: JR is intelligent and well-educated (though you could be forgiven for not realising he has a degree from UCL). Which makes it even worse in my view.

He knows better; he just also knows he can get away with stuff.

Sachs was a refugee from Nazi Germany. I think it’s horrible that he should have been victimised in this way in old age. He must have thought standards in this country had fallen dramatically, and they certainly had.

i don’t know how anyone can defend Ross and Brand. If you do so you are condoning the slippery slope which leads to Saville and Harris. Of course an over- permissive ‘anything goes’ attitude is dangerous to us all. The BBC gave the green light to some very powerful (male) stars and they should take responsibility for the damage done.

Ross and Brand are oiks, but the BBC facilitated them.

The nasty, hectoring message he left for Andrew Sachs shows exactly who he is.

What did he say, exactly? All I can find referenced is he blurted out "he fucked your granddaughter".

The nasty, hectoring message he left for Andrew Sachs shows exactly who he is. The incident may have happened years ago, it doesn’t change the repulsive things he said about a young woman.

I remember Sharon Osborne complained in an interview about the cruel comments he made regarding her daughters’ appearance and how surprised she was seeing as his daughters were around the same age.

The fact that he was such close friends with RB is also very telling.

The Traitors is showing his true colours - he really doesn’t like anyone challenging his authority. You could see it in the way he spoke to Clare and Ruth.

He made an error of judgment by going on the show.