From Dailymail · · 4m
Miriam Margolyes and the trouble her mouth keeps finding
A run through the outbursts, on-air slips and apologies-that-weren't that keep the actress in the headlines.
In brief
A run through the outbursts, on-air slips and apologies-that-weren't that keep the actress in the headlines. Margolyes treats saying exactly what she thinks as a principle, and she accepts the fallout rather than editing herself. Originally reported by Dailymail.
The actress who can't stop
Miriam Margolyes has built a second career out of saying the thing everyone else swallows. The bill for it keeps arriving.
This Morning goes wrong
During a live ITV interview she asked presenter Andi Peters about his race and called him 'high yalla'. ITV bosses stepped in and cut the moment from the ITVX recording.
What the term means
'High yalla', also spelled 'high yellow', is an outdated and offensive American slang term for a Black person with a light complexion.
The clip goes viral
Viewers clipped the exchange and pushed it round X, where the outrage built fast. Removing it from the ITVX edit did not slow it down.
Wishing Boris Johnson dead
On Channel 4's The Last Leg in 2020, with Johnson hospitalised with Covid, she said she had wanted him to die. Ofcom took more than 500 complaints.
“I had difficulty not wanting Boris Johnson to die. I wanted him to die.”
The walk-back that wasn't
She said she then wanted him to recover, because wanting people dead reflected badly on her. Her verdict on the recovery was that he got better physically and not otherwise.
“But he didn't get better as a human being. And I really would prefer that.”
Turning on 'the new Jewish people'
She claimed the decency and compassion of Jewish people had been 'squeezed out, evaporated', tying it to Israel's conduct in Gaza.
“the essential decency and compassion of the Jewish people has been squeezed out, evaporated”
No regrets, she says
Asked on the Adam Buxton podcast about calling Israel a 'vicious, genocidal, nationalist nation' in 2024, she said she stood by it.
“because I know I'm right”
Friendships that ended
Born into an Oxford Jewish family, she has lost friends over her stance since the October 7 Hamas attack. One close friend in Israel cut contact for good.
“I don't want to be friends anymore, go well on your journey, don't contact me again.”
Where she draws the line
She allows she may be wrong about plenty. On the Netanyahu government and Gaza she claims certainty.
“I don't know that I'm right about everything, but I do know that I'm right about the immorality of the Israeli position”
Swearing at the Chancellor
Booked on Radio 4's Today to talk about her late friend Robbie Coltrane, she instead told listeners what she had wanted to say to Jeremy Hunt in the studio before her.
“what I really wanted to say was 'f*** you, you b*****d!' But you can't say that.”
She thought she was off air
Margolyes told producers she believed the mics were down. Martha Kearney had warned her moments earlier that they were still live.
Calling Fagin 'vile'
On Front Row in 2024, asked which Dickens character stuck with her as a child, she named the Oliver Twist villain and the audience laughed.
“Oh, Fagin. Without question. Jewish and vile.”
The BBC cut it
She followed the line with a dig at Jews she knows now. The BBC pulled the comment from the programme and said it should have been challenged live.
“I didn't know Jews like that then, sadly, I do now.”
The Queen shut her up
At Buckingham Palace for British Book Week she talked over Elizabeth II and was told to 'be quiet'. She told The Times in 2022 the rebuke genuinely shocked her.
“The Queen told me to 'be quiet'. It shocked me because I hadn't quite realised how rude I was being.”
Her own defence
She says the offence is never planned, it is just what comes out when she refuses to filter herself.
“I say what I think and I don't care how it comes out.”
Dating advice, unfiltered
On This Morning she told one caller to lose weight and wash carefully, and steered another towards volunteering using a slur for disabled people.
“Lose a bit of weight and wash. Wash very carefully, all the crevices.”
Harry Potter fans, grow up
She played Professor Sprout and says she is grateful for it, but told 1News that adults still fixated on a children's book should have moved on 25 years later.
“They should be over that by now. It was 25 years ago and it's for children.”
How the Peters row started
She mimicked Christine Lampard's Northern Irish accent, then asked Andi Peters what accent would be 'normal' for him and guessed at his parents' race. He corrected her twice.
“This is normal. This is what I am.”
Doubling down in Southend
Promoting her memoir at Cliffs Pavilion, she said she never meant to hurt Peters, then used a slur for disabled people again while arguing she was simply curious about identity.
“I am fascinated by other people. What their story is, what made them who they are.”
The essence
Margolyes treats saying exactly what she thinks as a principle, and she accepts the fallout rather than editing herself.
