The Chase feud rumours – 'dirty looks', punch backlash and ITV newcomer pay cut

She is known for her feisty attitude as one of the smartest Chasers on the beloved ITV gameshow.

And fiery red-head Jenny Ryan has certainly made an impact on the show since she joined the series back in 2015.

Naturally on the adrenaline-inducing game show, the Chasers are encouraged to trash talk each other and their contestants to encourage their competitive side to come out on camera.

READ MORE: The Chase’s Bradley Walsh swipes at co-star for ‘stealing’ his ITV job

The show consists of six professional quiz champions: Anne Hegerty, Mark Labbett, Shaun Wallace, Paul Sinha and Jenny.

But as the years go by, the Chasers have been forced to deny that there is any bad blood between them after eagle-eyed fans started to suspect that there is a rift between the six Chasers.

As the ITV show prepares to celebrate its 13th anniversary on the airwaves, Daily Star have taken a look at some of the actions behind the Chaser’s “bitter feud.”

Dirty look

Last year, viewers were convinced they spotted a “dirty look” between Paul ‘The Sinnerman’ Sinha and Jenny ‘The Vien’ Ryan on the ITV spinoff show, Beat The Chaser.

The show sees the six brainiacs work together as a team and take on members of the public who think they can outsmart them on live TV.

But it’s not always plain sailing when working together, as the starlet explained how they can often get in each other’s way when trying to answer the quickfire questions.

She went on to address the awkward moment in question during an interview on This Morning as she explained how things tend to get tense if one of them get an answer wrong.

Jenny told viewers at home: “It’s a tricky situation. People were actually commenting on the show last night that one of the other Chasers gave me a dirty look. What they class to be a dirty look, because I got a question wrong.

“Actually, it’s more about who is going to sacrifice and guess on a question when nobody seems to know the answer.”

She added: “We’re trying to read each other’s minds and we just want to operate as efficiently as we can as a team.

“Sometimes we get in each other’s way which is when it gets a little bit… There is a bit of post-mortem when that happens!”

Punching co-stars

And it turns out that things even got physical on the tense TV show, after the pro quizzer was accused of “punching” Paul, who has Parkinson’s disease, when he got a question wrong.

In the spin-off series, Jenny can be seen thumping her teammate on the shoulder after he incorrectly answered a question about Star Wars as she threw him a frustrated stare across the panel while the audience laughed at his mistake.

Paul simply glared back at his teammate, but many viewers online argued that the star had gone too far as they took to Twitter to share their disappointment online.

One user penned: “I love #BeatTheChasers but struggle when Jenny decides to punch another chaser for getting a question wrong. Really not necessary,” as another tweeted: “That was nasty the Vixen hitting The Sinnerman.”

Paul went on to stand up for Jenny later that evening after the episode aired on TV as he pointed the pressure had got to them both on the show.

In full view of his 221.5k followers on the social media platform, he wrote: “I know sweet FA about Star Wars. It just wasn’t my question to answer. I just heard a hard T sound twice and assumed the answer must be Tatooine.

“We make mistakes. Jenny was right to be angry. Neither of us were right to stare at each other. Both of us had totally forgotten that the next question was ours.”

He continued: “In that four seconds, both of us looked ridiculous. It was exhilarating at the time, and p**s funny as well. It is funny when things go wrong.

“I didn’t make the same mistake again, Jenny never punched anyone again.

“After nine months of lockdown, loss of work, rules, regulations, frustration – it felt amazing to get punched by a great friend in a totally farcical incident.”

Meanwhile Mark, ‘The Beast’ Labbett got “revenge” on Jenny by poking her in the arm when she answered his question the following series.

He tweeted: “#BeatTheChasers for those who wondered why I punched @jenlion on the arm, it was karma for her punching @paulsinha in same situation last series [smiley emoji].”

Pay cut

At the end of 2020, rift rumours between the Chasers continued to stir after Anne ‘The Governess’ Hegerty made a pointed remark about their pay on the show.

Her controversial comments came after the team welcomed on board a brand-new Chaser, Darragh, ‘The Menace’ Ennis – who was previously a contestant onto the show.

On the ITV show there is only ever one Chaser competing in one episode, and with the addition of a new member, it meant less screen time for the remaining Chasers and therefore less money.

As the brainiac was welcomed onto The Lewis Nicholls Show on YouTube, she was asked about how she felt with the new Chaser added into the mix.

She explained: “This is a tricky one, because a lot of the public image that we are on the same sort of deal that Hollywood stars are in the 1930s.

“They got paid a salary per month, per year, and they were salaried employees at the studio and the studio would find them things to do for that salary. That isn’t actually how that works.

“We, The Chasers and Bradley [Walsh], we get paid a flat fee for every fee that we do.”

“So any show that I’m doing, is a show for which I’m being paid and the other Chasers aren’t. And that applied to all of us.

“If you’re going to divide the show by six rather than five, then, you know, do the maths.”

But her problem wasn’t just with her new team member on the show, as she also hit out at the former Coronation Street star who is now in high demand meaning he has less time to produce the show.

Anne continued: “The problem is Bradley, because he’s so in demand and so good, so superb at everything he does and can do so many different things, and so of course he’s massively in demand.

“And there’s about ten other things he’s doing besides the daytime Chase. A lot of the time we’ll find, ‘You know that filming block that was booked in, we are not filming that week after all.

“It turns out, Bradley was going another gameshow or something like that. And that’s a period of time where we aren’t working.”

Although ITV bosses have been pushing to get back to their normal scheduling, the show has been greatly impacted by the global pandemic.

The quizzer added: “Then obviously you add in a global pandemic and last year, because Bradley was still doing Doctor Who, we only recorded 93 shows. And we should’ve recorded twice that already.

“This year we are hoping to make up for it and do 150, 160, and then well that didn’t happen. So we hoped we still catch up in the spring but then again it all depends on whether Bradley’s available.”

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But Shaun ‘The Dark Destroyer’ Wallace has reassured the viewers at home that there is no bad blood between him and his fellow cast members after he was welcomed onto Lorraine.

He told stand-in host Ranvir Singh: “Ever since we’ve all become chasers, we’ve all had the attitude one for all and all for one, like the three musketeers. We do get along well.

“People might not believe us, but we support each other whether we win or lose.”

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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk