The BBC has upheld complaints about a joke by Katherine Ryan linking Victoria Beckham to an obscene term during an episode of Have I Got News For You.
The ruling followed complaints from two viewers about the November 2025 programme, in which Ryan was host. They described the remark as “gratuitously offensive”.
The episode had been discussing an alleged 2013 email by David Beckham to his publicist, in which he reportedly expressed anger at missing out on a knighthood and referred to the honours committee using the c-word.
Panellist Maisie Adam also used the term during the discussion. However, the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit said her use was justified because it referred to the alleged wording attributed to Sir David.
Ryan then said: “I don’t know that we are allowed to broadcast the c-word, but you did reference Victoria Beckham earlier and we’ll allow that.”
The ECU found that the later joke did not have the same editorial justification, ruling: “There was no such justification for a comment which presented Victoria Beckham as equivalent to a particularly offensive word.”
Katherine Ryan responds to the BBC ruling
Ryan has since addressed the decision in a video shared on social media, saying she had been the mother of a newborn at the time and was experiencing “matrescence”.
“At that time, though there is no defence, I was suffering from a condition called matrescence,” she said. “I was in that building with a ten-day-old baby. Should I have left the house?”
She added: “This is gonna be a tough one for the feminists because I was a woman going to work but I did call another woman a c***. Sometimes I forget that celebrities are not my friends. If I had called Jimmy Carr a c***, he wouldn’t have minded.”
Ryan also questioned the description of the remark as a slur, saying: “But this was described by the BBC as a slur, as though c***s are part of a protected group.”
She said the exchange had been intended as a joke, claiming the audience had gasped before she responded: “Woah, I love her.”
Ryan also shared a screenshot of a message she said she had sent to Victoria Beckham, explaining that it was “a stupid joke” and that she had not intended any harm.
