Former BBC Breakfast presenter Steph McGovern says sexist bosses thought she was a “thick” tea lady when she started out as a BBC reporter.
The Newcastle-born presenter, who fronts her own chat show, Steph’s Packed Lunch, said she wasn’t taken seriously earlier in her career because she is a woman.
She said: “People have underestimated me in the past, particularly when I was a business journalist interviewing CEOs. They would automatically assume I was there to make the tea or that I’d be thick.
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“But it made me think, ‘I’m going to show you!’
“I’d say to anyone now who’s lacking confidence or might be worried their background will hold them back, ‘Actually, it’s your superpower’.”
Steph, 41, admitted that she initially struggled to settle at the Beeb because of her Geordie working-class roots.
She added: “At first, I felt like I really stood out at the BBC. Nobody was mean to me, but I felt I was unusual because of my background.
“I’d suggest stories – such as the fact that people in poorer areas had to hire TVs – and I’d know people were secretly thinking, ‘That doesn’t happen’.
“But it was an epiphany for me, I realised I could bring something new to the table. I refused to let being different put me off.
“I was never going to change my voice, yet I felt like I suddenly had to be someone else.
“Then my editor said, ‘No, just be yourself.’ Now I say to people, ‘Don’t change who you are’,” she told Prima magazine.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
