Cat Deeley making fun of epilepsy

[Weemammy21]

AIBU in thinking that any tv presenter who ridicules people with serious health conditions should not be in post? This is what I think about Cat Deeley ridiculing people with epilepsy during This morning yesterday. People like this should not be tv presenters because of their intolerance and making fun of children and adults with epilepsy. AIBU?

It was on off the cuff remark. I'm an auntie to a nephew in his 20s with epilepsy. Language matters regarding health issues & awareness of this is improving. However, Cat was (perhaps clumsily) ridiculing her dancing, not people with epilepsy.

Oh, have a day off! It was clearly a joke about her dancing, stop this overly sensitive analysis of everything.

Crucify her!

It was a clumsy remark (in the current climate of hyper offence taking), she apologised, end of story.

You actually want her to lose her job??!

"Ridiculing people with epilepsy"

You need to be careful of libel Weemammy21.

She did no such thing, she made an off the cuff quip about her bad dancing and that was it.

You think someone should lose their job for one misjudged comment?

Its the sort of comment that nobody would have thought twice about a couple of years ago.

I thought her apology was badly worded. She said "I made a light hearted comment". She should have said it was "intended" to be lighthearted. Sounded like she was belittling the people who complained and making it clear she was apologising under duress.

If you can't control your gob don't work in live tv for a huge salary.

She apologised. End of as far as I'm concerned. If she did it again then she should be sacked.

You think people with epilepsy (or any other condition or disability) can’t make fun of themselves or have a laugh at their own expense?

She wasn’t punching down, she made a silly, impulsive joke that wasn’t an attempt to ridicule.

But again, why do you think disabled people haven’t got a sense of humour and wouldn’t see the comedy in someone saying oh I’m such a bad dancer I look like I’m having a seizure?

She shouldn’t have said it but it doesn’t seem like she intended to offend anyone, she meant it to be self deprecating and she promptly apologised, as she should have done. If she doubled down/refused to apologise you’d have a point OP. But that isn’t what happened.

Presumably not ok to say "you nearly gave me a heart attack" since that belittles the serious impact of an actual heart attack (I am going by what it's claimed she said on this thread - if she actually said something offensive I would take that back)

I must have a dark sense of humour bc me and my friends mock our many conditions, disabilities, mental health problems and traumas all the time. 😬

YABVVU, and the mental gymnastics you have performed to reach that conclusion indicate that you haven’t learned how to think - same as Cat’s lapse. At least she owned her error and acknowledged it.

Oh give over. She made a mistake and she's apologised. Take the positive, it's brought this into the limelight and now more people will hopefully think twice before saying the same.

I do think it was a strange mistake for someone so media savvy to have made, but was a mistake and she's given a prompt and proper apology. .

I don't necessarily think seizure = epilepsy in the minds of people who aren't affected

I do think there's a distinction between making light of your own condition and making fun of someone else's. She was right to apologise IMO. Now she has apologised I think a line should be drawn under it though, I can think of plenty of male TV personalities who have said and done much worse and not been pilloried for it.

Only that's really a pretty exaggerated version of what happened

The only way to avoid offending someone, somewhere, these days is to never say a word. None of us should have the right to never be offended, and we're doomed to disappointment if we think we do. Or, if we manage to force everyone around us to carefully weigh every word or give fake apologies for fear of being 'cancelled', we'll live in an extremely dull and colourless society, which seems to be the way we're currently headed.

Not all seizures are caused by epilepsy though, I wouldnt even think of epilepsy if someone mentioned seizures, I would think of someone having a seizure. Thats it.

My DM has epilepsy and the comment didn't offend her at all. It's the kind of thing she'd find funny.

She was dancing, jokingly said ‘I’m just having a seizure’.

It was a silly comment and she apologised. But, let’s be honest, it was exactly the sort of thing people in rl say all the time.

She absolutely wasn’t ridiculing anyone. People can’t wait to be offended.

Where is everyone reading the apology?

I’m offended - not everyone who has a seizure has epilepsy! See it’s easy to be offended but gets tiring.

In real life I find people say things like this all the time and no one is offended.

She apologised on TM today. It was that or get put in stocks by the professionally offended.