While the rest of the country was entranced by the ending of this year’s The Celebrity Traitors and – spoiler alert! – posh nitwit James Blunt’s self-immolation, Talk presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer had weightier concerns.
Referring to the fact that joint winners Romesh Ranganathan and Sebastian Croft had donated their prize money to the Refugee Council and the humanitarian charity Choose Love respectively, Hartley-Brewer fumed on, inevitably, X: “The end of #CelebrityTraitors was the most BBC thing EVER. Because of COURSE the two winners are donating their winnings – our licence fee money – to a charity for refugees and a charity for ‘queer’ refugees.”
Leaving aside that the BBC doesn’t make The Celebrity Traitors – it is produced by Studio Lambert, part of the global production group Banijay Entertainment – Hartley-Brewer’s confected outrage was met with bemusement. The Refugee Council supports refugees to rebuild their lives, integrate into communities and play a part in Britain – something one might have thought she would welcome – while Choose Love provides vital humanitarian aid like food, water, safe shelter, medical support and education. How awful!
As the TV presenter Richard Bacon wrote in response: “Choose Love is a charity for some of the most vulnerable people on the planet. Harry Styles gives money from his current tour. Do you have a problem with that? You have staggeringly unpleasant instincts.”
Alas, staggeringly unpleasant instincts may be precisely what Hartley-Brewer will need if, as is rumoured, she makes the move from Talk to GB News. Rupert Murdoch is said to be about to pull the plug on the online TV channel which has been a financial disaster from the get-go.
TalkTV, as it was, launched in 2022 with an enormous advertising budget and Piers Morgan as its star presenter. But it bombed, failing to attract an audience and going online-only in 2024, losing both its weekend programming and the ‘TV’ from its name.
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Now with the venture facing closure, Hartley-Brewer is said to be in talks with GB News to move her show there, to no-one’s surprise (there were jokes about her moving there in a speech given at a party given to mark Talk’s departure from linear TV in 2024, a party where the dress code was described as “Fuckable with a touch of funeral elegance”). Something for GB News staffers to look forward to, as Hartley-Brewer is renowned for her easy-going charm with those who have worked for her!
Hartley-Brewer has also been flirting with the Daily Mail, having been spotted this summer leaving the office of editor Ted Verity – although Mail Kremlinologists speculate this was more to send a message to Jan Moir, the columnist who displeased Verity by taking the side of the King in the row sparked by Earl Spencer’s recent book.
Meanwhile, the charities chosen by Ranganathan and Croft also displeased the Daily Express, which dispatched hack Emmanuella Ngimbi to find people angry about it. Sure enough, she was able to write a story headlined ‘BBC’s Celebrity Traitors sparks huge backlash over winning charities’ – that “huge backlash” being, er, Hartley-Brewer and three anonymous X users.
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