Anne Robinson hosted The Weakest Link for 11 years. (Image: Guy Levy/BBC)
Anne Robinson has insisted she has no issue with overweight people despite a series of jibes while on The Weakest Link.
During her time presenting the popular quiz show, Anne became known for her sharp insults fired at contestants that led her to being dubbed “the Queen of Mean”. At the end of that firing line were overweight people, single mums and gay people.
On one occasion Anne drew criticism after asking a woman, who said her job was being a full-time mum to three boys, whether any of the youngsters had asbos or wore ankle tags.
In 2006 she was called out by LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall who said her treatment of queer contestants was “derisive and demeaning”.
Anne once said a contestant “dressed like a lesbian” while she asked chef Meza Mahammad if he just “minced” around his restaurant. The presenter admits “you wouldn’t be able to say the kind of things I said on TV today”.
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The star became known as The Queen of Mean during her time on The Weakest Link (Image: BBC)
Speaking to the I, Anne insists the barbs were “all me” but says she doesn’t have issues with overweight people, gay people, or single mums. She says she was a single mother of sorts herself, splitting from daughter Emma’s father Charles Wilson in 1973.
Emma was just two at the time and Anne subsequently lost custody of the child to her ex-husband. Anne takes a brutal view of herself in her 2001 memoir Diary of an Unfit mother, where she describes herself as a “greedy, ambitious alcoholic”.
In the custody case, she was asked whether she drank in the morning, admitting she did. Anne eventually quit drinking in 1978 after picking her daughter up from school and driving to a petrol station to buy vodka. She says Emma cried as Anne drank the bottle.
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Anne Robinson is now holding a one-off version of The Weakest Link (Image: Getty)
Anne, who has also presented Countdown and Watchdog, is now preparing to take to the stage for a one-off show about The Weakest Link. Anne originally presented the quiz show on the for 11 years.
The format was sold to over 70 countries with Anne fronting around 3,000 shows – including a stint in the United States. It has since been revived by the , hosted by Romesh Ranganathan.
Anne will be hosting a one-off stage version of the show to raise money for her local primary school in Gloucestershire. Held at the Barn Theatre in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, Anne hopes it will raise enough money that the children are not “stuck in leaky prefab classrooms for another decade”.