Did man swear at son during live BBC News? Fact Check

ByCraig Haley

A video clip is going viral that purports to show the moment a man being interviewed at home by BBC News is interrupted by his adult son, leading to the man shouting obscenities at his son, who makes a hasty exit.

Originally published on Twitter, the video has gone viral with thousands of retweets.

FALSE

As many have no doubt realised, the video isn’t real, and is actually a spoof “skit”. While we generally don’t usually “debunk” such types of online content, it seems to have proved so realistic that many have taken the video at face value, and many others have denounced the video, believing it genuinely depicts a father swearing at his son for walking into a room while he was being interviewed.

The video is below. Since the video does contain obscenities, viewer discretion is advised.

Adorable moment man interrupted by his son on live TV

The video features the man who originally published it, Ivor Baddiel, a TV writer and brother of comedian David Baddiel. Baddiel had digitally superimposed his image onto a TV screen at the BBC News studio to give the impression that he was being interviewed by BBC News.


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During the skit interview, the news anchor jovially acknowledges that someone has walked into the room, at which point Baddiel explodes into a diatribe of obscenities, directed at what we are meant to assume is his adult (or teenage) son, who soon leaves the room. Baddiel then turns his attention back to the interview and apologises.

As we stated, it was spoof interview, and the BBC News footage of the anchor was taken from an interview when Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth was interrupted by his daughters (below). Needless to say, that (very real) interruption didn’t involve any obscenities.

While many who have engaged with the spoof interview understood that it was simply a parody, many others have believed it to be real and denounced Baddiel for shouting at his son. So much so that we have received many comments and questions regarding the video.

Because it doesn’t show a real BBC News interview, and because both Baddiel and his son (or the person playing the part of his son) were both part of the skit, we rank the claim false, though perhaps more accurately, this is a spoof or prank.