Former Blue Peter presenter Yvette Fielding has claimed that she was bullied while working on the children’s television show.
Fielding joined the show back in 1987 at the age of 18, making her its youngest-ever presenter. While appearing as a special guest on the Celebrity Catch-Up: Life After That Thing I Did podcast, she revealed that she was left a “shaking, gibbering wreck” due to the way people treated her on the show.
“I felt very lonely because I was the youngest. I was considered a kid – and a pain in the arse of a kid. I wasn’t given any training. I wasn’t told how to present, I wasn’t given any tips. I was basically left on my own, to just get on with it. And it wasn’t a pleasant first year,” she said.
She added: “I would ring my mum up and then hear my mum’s voice and burst into tears, because I was so homesick.”
Fielding also opened up about how she moved from her family in Stockport to London for the job and claimed that she was forced to live with the Blue Peter dog, Bonnie, against her will.
She explained: “It got to the point where I’d just had enough. Being made to live with the dog, I had no say in it: ‘You will move out of your flat and you will move into this house with the dog’.
“Given this dog to look after at 18, and not just a dog – the most famous dog in the country. Poor Bonnie was pining for her owner, scratching at the door every night. It was too upsetting. Imagine how many hearts would be broken if anything had happened to her. It would have been national mourning!”
The former presenter claimed that her poor treatment on the show stemmed from her boss Biddy Baxter. Fielding explained that she wanted Baxter to be proud of her but felt like she was being beaten by a parent.
“Every time I did what I thought was right, she’d come back and say something awful, or berate me in front of other people. It was absolutely soul destroying,” she said, adding: “You’ve got to be confident in front of 8 million people twice a week, but my confidence was at an all-time low. I was a shaking, gibbering wreck.”
The presenter added that as soon as Baxter departed from the show, her experience changed. She said that was able to have “an absolute blast” during her final four years on the show.
“The amount of awful people in the television industry … I always thank Biddy because I think, if it wasn’t for her, there’s no way I would’ve stood up, told them where to go and got on with it. She did that. She gave me the balls to do that. And I thank her for that. There’s no bitterness there whatsoever,” said Fielding.
“But when people say to me, ‘Oh wasn’t it wonderful? Didn’t you have a fabulous time?’ I think, no, not the first year. It was horrific. It was like a nightmare!” she added.
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