Top 20 Most Offensive British TV Moments

#20: Age Gap Love

Would you do anything to get on TV? If you would, you may have got the dubious honour of featuring on Channel 4’s infamously anarchic 90s’ reality show, “The Word”. It became infamous for these segments, in which willing members of the public did the most repulsive things you can imagine all for their five minutes of fame. But we said we’re only looking at specific moments, so which ones have we chosen? Perhaps the most legendary of all was the bloke who French kissed a pensioner, though some far more revolting ones included someone drinking their own sick and eating a bowl of verrucas. No wonder it eventually got the axe.

#19: Norman Lamont

Julian Clary remains a beloved comedian who always has an exceptionally lewd one-liner at the ready, and this clip from the 1993 British Comedy Awards is a fine example. He was invited up on stage by Jonathan Ross to read nominations for the top television comedy personality, but began by making this outrageous joke about former Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont. This is an interesting incident, because everybody in the room loved it, and Lamont himself reportedly didn’t mind. The tabloids, however, did, with The Sun and the Daily Mail leading campaigns against Clary. Unfortunately for them, he was far too popular for them to destroy, and has continued to have a wildly successful career.

#18: The Feminine Woman

This bizarre news item was resurrected by the Channel 4 documentary series “It Was Alright in the 70s”, and now we have the clips to revisit. In a fascinating precursor to modern tradwives – which users of social media will be familiar with – these women were advocating AGAINST feminism, wanting women to stay at home and remain devoted servants to their husbands. They were horrified particularly by the idea of women playing sports, aghast at the thought that any woman might choose not to be as feminine as possible all the time. Trousers, work, having any ambitions loftier than giving your husband as many children as possible? Not for these ladies.

#17: The Battle of Orgreave

The outrage over this was well deserved, with the BBC finding itself in very hot water indeed. Or perhaps the water wasn’t hot at all, since it WAS the miners’ strike they were reporting on. In June 1984, picketing miners in Orgreave, Rotherham clashed with South Yorkshire Police, a force known for exercising unnecessary violence throughout the 80s. But when the time came for the BBC to report, it selectively edited the scenes, showing miners fighting with the police and then the police charging at them on horses. Witnesses were outraged, with alternate footage proving that the police HAD resorted to violence first, charging the miners BEFORE they retaliated. The BBC was accused of distributing anti-strike propaganda on behalf of Downing Street.

#16: Sex for Rent Landlord

Why on Earth did “This Morning” get this man on in the first place? Presumably, to court controversy, and they did that very well, with Holly Willoughby spending the entire segment unable to hide her horror at what she was hearing. He appeared anonymously, so all we had to look at was the back of his head while he explained that he lets women live “rent free” in his flat in exchange for a sexual relationship five days of the week. He tries to justify this by saying most marriages in the 19th century were arranged, but we’re not sure that those relationships were an “arrangement” exactly like this. Willoughby remained appalled.

#15: Maggie’s Militant Tendency

For about twenty years, the Labour Party was infiltrated by a far-left group called Militant, agitating for the Party to take on more extremist, explicitly Marxist policies. But in 1984, “Panorama” wanted to see whether the Tories had any similar affiliations with extremist groups, so they went undercover and claimed that various senior Conservatives were in cahoots with rightwing extremism. The investigative episode was called “Maggie’s Militant Tendency”, and was denounced by the government, with two MPs, including Neil Hamilton, even successfully suing the BBC for defamation. Considering the BBC is ostensibly non-partisan – but we all know THAT isn’t true – this was an immense problem.

#14: Prank Calls

This is particularly offensive only if your name is Sharon or Shannon Goodman, and we have to wonder whether she was even watching the programme that day or whether she turned it off the first time her angry ex called in. He got through at least three times by putting on various voices, beginning the calls like he was telling Matthew Wright his thoughts on all kinds of debates before steering the conversation to how much he hates Sharon. Wright apologised to Sharon on the show’s behalf and wasn’t sure how he kept getting through. Did he have more than one phone number that he was ringing them from?

#13: Down’s Syndrome Debate on Emmerdale

In 2020, viewers were horrified to learn that “Emmerdale” was going to uncharted territory, which for a long-running soap opera can only mean something truly outrageous. ITV announced that an upcoming storyline was going to focus on Laurel and Jai’s pregnancy, with Laurel’s baby being diagnosed with Down’s syndrome in utero. What followed was a debate on whether the pregnancy should be terminated, which it ultimately was. Viewers with Down’s syndrome and with friends and family with Down’s were appalled, calling the “debate” around terminating these pregnancies outdated and offensive. “Emmderdale” defended itself by saying it already had characters with Down’s syndrome, and wanted to reflect other aspects of the condition.

#12: Laurence Fox Gets Sacked from GB News

If something’s offensive enough that somebody gets the chop from GBeebies, you know it’s bad. Rightwing agitator Laurence Fox, who’s made a name for himself by saying whatever he likes and repeatedly facing the consequences – including getting arrested for his anti-ULEZ campaign, losing all of his election deposits, and being successfully sued for libel more than once – had some disturbing remarks for journalist Ava Evans during a broadcast. Dan Wootton, who was hosting and didn’t challenge him, was also sacked. Then, Calvin Robinson was sacked as well for saying that GB News had violated its self-imposed free speech mandate by sacking Fox.

#11: Blind Football

There’s certainly a case to be made for whether gambling ads should be allowed in the first place and why they haven’t gone the same way as cigarette advertising. But regardless, we still have them, and they’re always trying to grab your attention to ensure you place your bets with them and not some other bookmaker. In 2010, this advert went out showing a blind football team practicing ahead of the real-life World Blind Football Championships that year. The footballers get confused and accidentally kick a cat, rather than the ball, across the pitch. We Brits do love our animals, so the idea of a cat coming to any harm at all led to over a thousand Ofcom complaints.

#10: The Sex Pistols vs Bill Grundy

In 1976, Queen were meant to be appearing on “Today” but unexpectedly dropped out. At such short notice, the Sex Pistols, still totally maligned by establishment figures with the punk rock movement only in its infancy, were drafted in. They turned up drunk and scruffy, but Grundy was apparently even drunker; he’s always denied that, but Steve Jones was convinced. He goaded them into swearing during the recording, which a lot of people believed was the first time the F-word was used on television. It wasn’t, but the mud stuck and Grundy ended up suspended for two weeks, with the entire show – and his career – ending soon after.

#9: Piers Morgan on Meghan Markle

While it seems like a lot of “GMB” viewers agreed with him and weren’t too put off by his endless rants, he did eventually remove himself from the programme after getting into a spat. He got over 57,000 complaints for his comments, particularly because the Duchess of Sussex was talking very candidly about her mental health and the strain of both the royal family’s strict rules and the constant tabloid intrusion into her personal life. Piers was meant to be advocating for more empathy and mental health awareness, and then accused Meghan of being a liar for talking about her own problems; he was slated by mental health charities over this.

#8: Carol Thatcher’s Favourite Jam

Daughter of the late PM Margaret Thatcher, Carol Thatcher has had a long broadcasting career as a journalist, but eventually tanked it herself by using racial slurs in the green room of “The One Show”. She used a slur beginning with G, which also describes the well-known mascot for Robertson’s Jam, to describe Jo-Wilfried Tonga at the 2009 Australian Open, which was eventually leaked to the media. She was immediately dropped by “The One Show”, and the BBC said that it wouldn’t work with her again unless she apologised. She never did and never has, with her media career ending then and there.

#7: The Simpson Siblings

Possibly the most outlandish soap opera of them all, even Channel 4 knew it had crossed a line when this storyline began. After an age of simmering tension between Nat Simpson and his older sister Georgia, the situation took a disturbing turn when it was revealed that they were in an incestuous relationship. This ran throughout ’96, with viewers horrified but unable to look away. Eventually, though, the backlash got too much, with the Independent Television Commission ordering an apology from Channel 4 – something the channel doesn’t usually give out. The Simpsons slowly faded away and, thankfully, disappeared in the aftermath.

#6: Frankie Boyle on the Queen

We could put any Frankie Boyle joke on this list, because practically every single one he ever made caused outrage among a certain type of person – not to mention ruffled feathers at the BBC. Even “Mock the Week” was too tame for him, and he eventually left over disagreements about his most lurid material not making it into the episodes. Despite those restrictions, he still managed to get this infamous joke about the Queen past the censors. Some people say that this joke got him blacklisted by the BBC, though that ultimately hasn’t been true, but it certainly pushed a lot of boundaries. His jokes about Thatcher also crossed a few lines and made a stir. You have to love him, though.

#5: Jeremy Clarkson’s Nursery Rhyme

Somebody leaked this footage two years after it had been taped as one of a few unaired takes of a “Top Gear” segment. We’re not sure who, exactly, Clarkson upset to have it come out two years later via Twitter, but they must have been livid considering the outrage this caused. While reciting the common rhyme “eenie meenie minie mo”, Clarkson almost used a slur where, nowadays, people usually use the words “tiger” or “teacher”. He mumbled it to obscure it as part of a desperate attempt NOT to say it, and later apologised publicly. Presumably, the children in the playground were still using that particular word when he was growing up.

#4: Are You a Racist?

Another relic from “It Was Alright in the 70s” – thanks again to Channel 4 – this provoking documentary from the subsequent “80s” edition was an examination of contemporary race relations in Britain. The documentary was an episode of “Horizon” called, fittingly, “Are You a Racist?” The BBC put out a casting call in the newspapers for any self-confessed racists, and also for any racial minorities who had been subjected to racism. They then made them all live in a house together in a bizarre precursor to “Big Brother”, and then had them debate, over and over again, whether races should be allowed to mix in 1980s Britain. The offensive bits were all the things the devout racists were claiming.

#3: Brass Eye’s Last Episode

Every episode of “Brass Eye” is controversial, of course, with musical numbers about Myra Hindley and jokes about a woman giving birth to a two-foot-tall testicle. But the “Paedogeddon!” special was so outrageous that Michael Grade was finally able to achieve his dream of getting the programme axed. The entire episode was a parody of the constant, sensational scaremongering about alleged offenders in the media, but the joke flew over a lot of people’s heads. It was accused of making light of serious issues and mocking those concerned about children being mistreated. One more small victory of Grade was getting the Peter Sutcliffe musical sequence cut from the finished episode.

#2: Celebrity Big Brother 5

It was the scandal that rocked the nation. “Big Brother” had always been attacked as being crude and lowbrow. But never was that clearer than in the fifth series of “Celebrity Big Brother”, in which Jade Goody, her family, and Jo O’Meara from S Club 7 made disparaging remarks about Shilpa Shetty. Shetty, an Indian actress, was subjected to all kinds of abuse from the other housemates, mocking her name and at one point even calling her a “dog”. The incident was so outrageous that even Gordon Brown had to comment on it during a trade visit to India. Shetty went on to win, while the likes of O’Meara were left doing media rounds saying the show ought to be cancelled.

#1: Jerry Springer: The Opera

At the time, this became the number one most complained about moment in Ofcom history, though it’s since been beaten by various editions of “I’m a Celeb”, “Big Brother”, and very nearly supplanted by the King’s coronation. Penned by comedian Stewart Lee and his co-conspirator Richard Thomas, this was a broadcast of the hugely successful West End musical, that ended up running for over 600 performances. TV audiences were far less happy about it, however, with the group Christian Voice protesting its existence and saying they were going to take the BBC to court for blasphemy. The court case went nowhere, and the musical won a slew of awards.

Let us know in the comments if you’ve ever complained to Ofcom, or if you have better things to do with your time.