Gogglebox star slams exploitative show and says she | UK News

Former Gogglebox star Reverend Kate Bottley has launched a scathing assault on the Channel 4 show, calling it “consensual exploitation” and admitting she lied to get out of her contract. Kate, 50, who now presents on BBC Radio 2, mentioned she gave a faux excuse to step away from the hit sequence in 2016 and never supposed to return. She claimed the show disrupted her household life, remoted her youngsters, and left them financially worse off.

The Church of England vicar, who appeared on Gogglebox with her husband Graham for 5 sequence, mentioned their modest pay was swallowed up by hidden prices. Speaking on the Walking the Dog podcast, she mentioned: “I wish I’d known how much it took over our life for two and a half years. It’s reality TV, by its nature consensual exploitation.” Kate defined she initially agreed to participate to help change how people of religion have been portrayed on screen, but the filming soon turned “quite intrusive”.

Her son Arthur, who she mentioned is on the “autistic spectrum”, and daughter Ruby would disguise in their rooms twice a week while a giant manufacturing crew filmed in their home.

“My kids spent two-and-a-half years sat in their bedrooms every Tuesday and Thursday night or whatever nights they came to film,” she mentioned. “My kids didn’t have friends round for a lot [of the time], didn’t have help with their homework. Things like that.”

She also revealed how mealtimes have been affected: “I’m married to a man who won’t eat takeaways, and I don’t want to be filmed eating on camera so I was like, ‘No, I’ll cook.’ There were casseroles and chillis.”

“They paid, but I cooked two nights a week for the crew… all the money we got from it went on the electricity, the internet connection that they were using, and the food and being hospitable to six people in my home two nights a week.

She added: “It’s a vicarage as well, I should be hospitable. We should be sharing our home to people, and eating food together.

“It was a good two and a half years but we couldn’t have done any more. It got to the point where we were just a bit overwhelmed.”

Kate revealed they finally left the show under the guise of serving to Ruby focus on her GCSEs. “But we were just a bit overwhelmed,” she admitted.

The BBC host also addressed criticism from viewers: “We used to get that whole ‘Oh, you never let your husband speak.’ It was like, ‘Wow.’ Be careful there, your misogyny’s showing.”

While grateful for the profile increase, Kate mentioned the exclusivity clause meant she had to flip down better-paid jobs, including an invite to Would I Lie To You?

“There’s quite tight exclusivity, and rightly so,” she mentioned. “Because if you’re filming ordinary people sat on their sofa watching TV you can’t then have those people on the TV. It sort of breaks the fourth wall too much.”