‘People spill the beans and confess terrible things’
TV presenter Mel Giedroyc, 53, on fronting the show where famous folk are encouraged to dredge up outrageous antics…
What to expect from series two?
We’ve got some cracking guests! Lorraine Kelly, Sara Cox, Sarah Millican, Scarlett Moffatt, Katherine Ryan (along with her newborn son, Fred), Bill Bailey… The great thing about Unforgivable is that the seasoned people have (outrageous) stories coming out of their ears. Then you’ve got the young bucks who are young and fearless…
Has anyone surprised you?
I get shocked by the people who come on who you don’t expect to have dirt under the carpet, like Clare Balding – who is so nice and sweet. That’s always very enjoyable for me.
Do you have a story?
I’ve got a recent one from the Christmas holidays! And I feel bad about this, genuinely… My daughter [Florence, 19] came back from her first term at university, and she had this brilliant 1980s white jumper. She’s got a cool, vintage wardrobe and she looks great. Long story short, I nicked it and secreted it in my own space. When she was going back to Belfast she said, “Mum, have you seen my favourite jumper? Did I put it in the wash?” I denied everything, I said I hadn’t seen it. But I have got it, which is quite bad, isn’t it? It’s not even funny, it’s just really mean.
LOLs! Who do you think should come on to confess something? I’d like to get the whole of the Cabinet Office to tell the truth, for once. A bit of political humour there! I do think there’s something about this show that makes people spill the beans. Is it because we’ve had the pandemic, and this is like a therapy session after not being able to talk to each other? There’s a section at the end where members of the audience can confess something terrible that they’ve done. Truly, you couldn’t make up these stories! And everyone seems to enjoy themselves?
The recordings go on for about three and a half hours, because people don’t want to leave! It’s just really good fun, genuinely. David Baddiel said a really nice thing. He told me, “This is one of the few shows where you get to tell a long story – which we’ve lost a bit in this day and age of little soundbites.” It was really sweet of him to say that. It’s deep, isn’t it?
What was Lorraine Kelly like? She’s a cracker! She told the most brilliant story involving someone who was her boss at the time, and how she’d gone into this person’s office dressed as an American policewoman. She kicked the door in, bashed through and said something like, “OK, mother******, get your head down!” – only it wasn’t her boss in the office, it was a new ITV commissioner or something. I really love that! And when she was telling us what happened she used that particular swear word twice – twice!
Do you expect female celebs to have crazier stories than men? Yeah! We multi-task; we’re in seven different places at once – so we have seven times more stories to tell. We’re busier generally, so more stuff happens! And your youngest-ever guest… Katherine Ryan’s baby was extraordinary! He was like, two or three weeks old when she came on the show. All the stuff he was exposed to! I feel bad, there was a lot of effing and jeffing…