My fury over Strictly jibe
YOU might think her grasp of five languages, sharp news sense and impressive CV would be enough to ensure Emily Maitlis rose up the ranks of the BBC.
But the Newsnight presenter has revealed she was once told by a boss at the corporation she would have to go on Strictly Come Dancing if she wanted to progress.
In an interview yesterday Miss Maitlis, 45, said: ‘A BBC manager once said that – as a woman – if I wanted my career to go to the next step I would have to do Strictly Come Dancing. I thought he was joking. He wasn’t.’ The remark
‘I thought he was joking’
was made by a friend in a management job but not actually one of her direct bosses. The BBC declined to comment last night.
Miss Maitlis did not name the manager or say when the remark was made, but she has had a successful career at the corporation since joining in 2001. She is one of the main presenters of Newsnight and works as a newsreader.
While Miss Maitlis has not appeared on the main series of Strictly, she did take part in a pastiche of the show in aid of Children in Need in 2011. She is not the first female BBC newsreader to snub Strictly, with Fiona Bruce having rejected offers to appear. However, others, such as Natasha Kaplinsky, have taken the plunge.
Miss Maitlis, a Cambridge graduate, has spoken before of the sexism she has encountered during her career and has claimed it is harder for a woman to be taken seriously.
But she has also said: ‘If two people go for the same TV job and they’re both journalists but one looks better, of course you’re going to give the job to the better-looking one.’
The mother of two told The Mail on Sunday she regrets her children have not shown more interest in their Jewish roots, but blames herself ‘as I didn’t give them much of a religious education’.