Has everyone forgotten Jonathan Ross and Sachsgate?

[Greedybilly]

I love traitors but i detest Jonathon Ross. I clearly remember his vile phone calls to Andrew Sachs about his grandaughter. Along with his accomplice Russel Brand - vile, laddish behaviour. How is he even still working? Does he have mates in high places - people's careers have gone under for much less.
Also he makes my skin crawl and is ruining a damn good show.

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.

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??

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.

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

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.

@Puppylucky

Image under review but it was radio 2

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.

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

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’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.🫩🤮

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.

No, I won’t forget that. He’s horrible.

Jonathan was born in 1960 and his wife 1970. They married in 1988 and are still together. Even so, I would have felt uncomfortable if my 16yo DD had started dating a man 10yrs older at that age.

This has made me join up the dots, OP. Thanks for reminding us of this incident.

i can’t bear oiks like JR, but I think the real villain in this is the BBC. They admitted during the Greg Wallace scandal that they now acknowledge it’s a mistake to let an ‘untouchable’ culture develop amongst the stars and teams who work on particular programmes. You can imagine how it happens. The ‘talent’ is indulged and treated like royalty, creating a feeling that they’re beyond criticism and that normal rules of decent human conduct don’t apply to them. This is what happened with Saville, Harris , Wallace and, I’m sure, many other stars with planet-sized egos.

I really hope the BBC have learned by now to rein these horrors in.

He’s about as funny as gut rot

Of course I can see what is wrong with shouting those words BUT it was 20 years ago. He didn't rape or murder someone so for how long exactly should he be punished?

We all get that you hate him and don't think he should ever have been allowed back on tv and radio but there are plenty of people who like him and watch his tv shows and listen to his radio shows.

She was on the show later actually. I clearly remember him being lecherous towards her about her 'grow up' . Not really watched or listened to him ever since. Its not cancelling or wacamole just people having an opinion on what they want to consume and why. Perfectly normal. Telly and general celeb culture is full of creeps. I tend not to want to watch the ones who have displayed behaviour that in my opinion is unsavoury. Just my opinion ...others can form theirs.

Agree. Poor Charlotte Church got creeped on a lot back then. One good thing about today is that that kind of stuff wouldn't fly in the media, or at least would be disciplined more.

The Sun was one of the offenders ofc, but not the only one.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20554942&ved=2ahUKEwiA8I6K-7CQAxVGXUEAHZ4qKwEQFnoECFIQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2IL78w-pe0Y72hMQRL2Q8j

There’s no accounting for taste!

I’m amazed to hear he’s still going, tbh. I’d have thought he’d have passed his sell-by some time ago.

I’m genuinely surprised that his sleazy style is still popular these days.

Exactly. No one knew anything about it until the Mail created a whole shitshow that went on for weeks, absolutely wrung every last drop out of it.

RB's 'Scandalous' tour was based on the scandal. As abhorrent as he's turned out to be it was really funny.

Can't stand Jonathan Ross either Yes, and l think he does know stuff about his friends in hight places.Thatis how he gets work.

Traitors is a good concept but l really do think it is a complete set up from start to finish Also shows what scum bags and how two faced many of these people are in real life.

Gone right off Alan Carr! Claire Balding has real ntegrity.

Cat Burns is by far the worse and could buy and sell you..A real wide head. Very slippy.

Although the prize money will go to Charity the contestants also get a fat fee for taking part. Egos boosts.

Also helps pay for their upmarket life styles and the there kids School/Uni fees. Never forget that

Agree we should definitely not move on and forget what he did. It was not a mistake it was a calculated verbal nasty and completely unnecessary attack on a young girl. The fact that he also involved that other imbecile brand goes to show that they planned it. Why would someone do something like that especially pubically.

Yes, I had completely forgotten why I didn’t like him. Thank you for reminding me, I was beginning to think I was just being a grump