Richard Madeley has revealed he “genuinely doesn’t care” about being compared to Alan Partridge by Good Morning Britain viewers – as long as it doesn’t affect his career.
The ITV presenter opened up about the “extraordinary abuse” he receives on social media, but claimed it doesn’t bother him, as long as it doesn’t stop the next work contract.
Madeley, who previously presented This Morning as well as Richard & Judy, is often likened to Partridge – the famously crass comic television character played by Steve Coogan.
READ MORE: GMB’s Kate Garraway told to ‘calm down’ as she launches punch at Richard Madeley
However, he said the online abuse came from a ‘tiny minority’ of people and it was ‘really exceptional’ for any abuse to happen face-to-face.
(Image: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
Speaking on the How To Be 60 podcast, the 67-year-old star said: “I do Good Morning Britain a lot now and I discovered that I only have to cough or sneeze in the wrong direction to get extraordinary abuse on Twitter.
“I mean, really amazing stuff.”
When asked whether being “misrepresented”as a real life Alan Partridge and whether it bothers him, he added: “You have to analyse these things and be scrupulously realistic.
(Image: BBC/Baby Cow/Gary Moyes)
“If it affected the way I do the job, if it threw me off balance – it would be a problem, it would matter.
“If it had ever affected a contract I was being offered, a job that I was being offered…if it mattered, then those thing wouldn’t have happened, in other words, it would be justified in some way, shape, or form
“But it’s not, it’s just abuse. I honestly don’t care. I’m not just trying to fend it off, I genuinely don’t care because it’s not real.
“The abuse that we all get online, particularly on Twitter, it comes from a tiny minority of people.”
Madeley said the “worst” real-life abuse he has received, when a GMB viewer walking along a coastal path near his holiday home in Cornwall confronted him.
“He came right into my space, finger jabbing at my chest,” he recounted.
“And he said, ‘I just want you to know that everything you’ve ever done, everything you’ve ever said or will say, I loathe and fucking despise, you c*** and beamed with pleasure.
“I just burst out laughing, because he was ridiculous. But it was funny, his passion was funny.
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“That’s the worst thing right in my face, but honestly, I couldn’t give a f**k.”
The television presenter insisted encounters like those were rare and interactions with viewers tended to be positive.
He added: “That is really exceptional, I don’t get that sort of stuff out in the street at all. People are very friendly, they often come up and talk. We have intelligent sensible conversations.
“A lot of people are very nice to me when I’m out and complimentary – the very opposite of what you would expect if you thought Twitter was real, and it’s not.
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“The numbers of people who go on Twitter to abuse people in the public eye are, relatively speaking, fractional, they’re tiny.
“You don’t see it in the real world.
“You have to remember that and be cognisant of that because otherwise, I know there are some people who, being bad-mouthed on Twitter it really fucks them up and it shouldn’t.”
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays on ITV1 and TIVX at 6am
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
