Nick Hancock has apologised to Luke Chadwick about the jokes he made regarding the former Manchester United midfielder on BBC sports game show 'They Think It's All Over'.
Hancock presented the show for nearly a decade between the mid-90s and mid-2000s. For a period, he would regularly make jokes about Chadwick's appearance.
In an interview with The Athletic, Chadwick said he would "dread" seeing the show on Friday nights during his late teens.
"I wasn’t a hugely confident guy anyway and this just made it worse," said Chadwick.
"I used to half-watch it, hoping and praying that they would stop. But they never did. It just carried on and on. Because it was silly and childish, if it had happened once, I don’t think it would have been that much of a problem. It was the continuation every single week that really got to me. They would bring me up every week."
Speaking to BBC Breakfast on Monday, Hancock said he looks back and is "appalled".
"Listening to Luke is incredibly humbling – he’s shown so much more generosity and understanding and good judgment than we did at the time," said Hancock.
"I’m appalled for him and at myself. When I hear him speaking, I’m full of admiration for the present Luke Chadwick and full of sympathy for the young Luke Chadwick. The terrible thing about comedians and comedy shows is that if you’re getting laughs, you think you’re doing a good job.
"Of course the worst thing for Luke was that it became a bit of a running joke. To us it was a photograph. That’s not good obviously, we should have been thinking about the person, but that’s what can happen."
"I was unaware of quite how badly this had affected him"
'They Think it's All Over' host Nick Hancock tells #BBCBreakfast he's full of admiration for Luke Chadwick, who's opened up about the impact of media comments about his looks.
More here: https://t.co/vnOcQT4Pnn pic.twitter.com/dljhKN4scj— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) May 18, 2020
