Vanessa Feltz: This Interview Got Surprisingly Heated

Vanessa Feltz has spent more than thirty years at the heart of British television. I built Heretics outside it. We began by agreeing that television had become sanitised. Within minutes, she was asking whether I was ashamed of myself. What follows is a collision between two very different ideas of public conversation: one prioritises care and responsibility; the other prioritises bluntness and freedom. You decide which one the future belongs to. Sub to her new show here: https://www.youtube.com/@VanessaFeltzYouTube Following the sudden end of her Channel 5 programme, Vanessa reveals how Paramount pulled the plug, why terrestrial television is losing its audience and what decades in British broadcasting taught her about censorship, controversy and the shrinking space for unscripted opinions. But the agreement doesn’t last. A throwaway remark about Loose Women becomes an accusation of misogyny and ageism. Vanessa explains why she deplores my decision to interview Katie Hopkins, questions whether controversial figures deserve a platform and reveals whether she would invite Woody Allen into her home. Then, after Vanessa asks what I have said that made me unacceptable to mainstream television, the interview takes its most dramatic turn. We clash over transgender identity, pronouns, detransition, compelled speech and whether genuine compassion means affirming somebody’s identity—or being willing to tell them something they do not want to hear. At one point, Vanessa calls me “nasty”. Shortly afterwards, she announces that she has lost the will to live. But the arguments are only half the story. Vanessa also speaks with startling honesty about growing up with parents who rarely expressed love, being made to feel grateful to any man who chose her and why she has never sustained a successful relationship. She opens up about the cruelty she experienced over her weight, starving and dehydrating herself before televised weigh-ins on Celebrity Fit Club, the gastric band that became embedded in her liver and why she wishes Mounjaro and Wegovy had existed before she underwent gastric bypass surgery. There are also extraordinary stories involving Madonna, Katie Price, Woody Harrelson, Jeff Goldblum, The Big Breakfast and the famous guests who behaved very strangely after climbing into bed with Vanessa. Was Vanessa defending kindness and responsibility—or the instincts that made mainstream television frightened of real conversation? Was I defending honesty and free expression—or simply being provocative for its own sake? Watch until the end and decide for yourself. The way the conversation concludes may surprise you. Subscribe to Heretics for long-form conversations in which insiders, survivors and dissidents reveal the hidden rules of powerful people and institutions—and how those rules affect you. CHAPTERS 0:00 “Are you ashamed of yourself?” 3:54 Why mainstream television is dying 7:59 One joke turns the interview against Andrew 12:32 Is offensiveness ever “just a joke”? 18:15 The parents who rarely expressed love 21:59 Why Vanessa always needed to be chosen 25:09 Why Vanessa deplores Katie Hopkins 30:48 Vanessa discovers she was voted one of Britain’s worst people 35:18 How she avoided the internet until 2020 38:27 “What have you said?” The gender clash begins 42:36 What does it really mean to be a woman? 46:18 “You’re just being nasty” 50:10 When “just be kind” stops being simple 55:40 The weight-loss operation that went horribly wrong 59:03 Starving herself before a televised weigh-in 1:03:21 Why one slice of cake changes everything 1:07:19 Vanessa’s YouTube reinvention—and the stars in her bed #VanessaFeltz #Heretics #AndrewGold #FreeSpeech #BritishTV Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices