Dom Joly, who shot to fame through Trigger Happy TV in 2000, has admitted that he still worries about money after failing to save throughout his career
Dom Joly is worried he will “die in savage poverty” after making poor financial decisions throughout his career. The comedian initially graduated from the University of London and then went on to spend a year working as a diplomat with the European Commission in Prague and was a political producer at ITN before swapping things for a career in comedy.
From 2000 until 2003, Dom headed up the Channel 4 hidden camera series Trigger Happy TV in which he would pull pranks o members of the public, and has appeared on programmes such as Made In Britain, Fool Britannia and Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls. In 2010, he competed in the I’m A Celebrity jungle alongside Alison Hammond, Gillian McKeith and eventual winner Stacey Solomon.
But despite all of his success, Dom, who has been married to graphic designer Stacey MacDougall for over 25 years and has two children with her, is afraid he will have nothing to show for it at the end of it because he has prioritised treating his family to lavish experiences rather than saving into a pension.
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He said: “The people I mocked for commuting to sensible jobs are now retiring with pensions, while I spent my mornings dressed as a squirrel shouting: ‘F*** you. Accessing the strange part of your brain that produces comedy may also open the door to something darker. One day, everything is exciting; the next, the diary is empty.
“I should have married an accountant or lawyer who could do the finances. I panic about money but I have had the best 30 years imaginable. Whenever I made money, I spent it and took my children to extraordinary places. I have no pension – just a financial spiral.”
Speaking to the i newspaper, he added: “I have travelled, made things I am proud of, embarrassed my family and spent almost all the money. I just hope I don’t die in savage poverty.”
The success of Dom’s Channel 4 show relied on members of the public being willing to appear on camera, and he recently revealed that one of the main reasons many refused to do so was because they were being unfaithful to their partners and didn’t want to be caught out in front of the nation.
Speaking on the Remember Me? podcast, he told host Maisie Adam: “We got away with quite a lot but the main reason people didn’t sign consent forms – it’s not that they didn’t want to be on telly, it’s because they were having affairs.
“I can not tell you the amount of people we did, and when the second series went out, the guy would go ‘Oh my god, it’s Dom Joly! Am I being filmed? Oh! That’s not my wife.’ That was just the people we talked to!”
Dom’s most famous bit is, ironically, his least favourite – that enormous phone. Just days after the first episode aired in January 2000, he was on a train when he heard that now-familiar Nokia ring tone.
He said: “Three people stood up and shouted, ‘HELLO?! YEAH I’M ON THE TRAIN – IT’S RUBBISH!’ I was like, ‘f***. What is happening?’” It’s a catchphrase that has haunted him for 25 years.
“I swear there’s not a day where it doesn’t happen. Even on the way here, a bloke spotted me and shouted, ‘HELLO?!’ And 25 years later I still don’t have a good response to it! Like, ‘Yes, hello!’”
“So many scenes went wrong, but the worst we did was with Sarah Ferguson,. We were walking past the Duke of York barracks on King’s Road and there’s a party going on, so we go in and blag some free drinks. Suddenly we spot Fergie sitting in the corner on her own, so we say, ‘let’s do it’.
“We go right up to her, she looks panicky and I stick my microphone in her face and say, ‘Good morning Your Majesty, you are live on Good Morning Mexico – do you have anything to say to the people of Mexico?’
She starts blabbering on into this tiny camera, and after a while I ask her to pause because we’ve gone to a commercial break, and could she absolutely freeze?
“And for three minutes, me, Sam and the Duchess of York are frozen in the middle of this drinks party. And then we leg it. By the time we get back to our office there’s a fax from her lawyers and sadly we could never show the footage.”
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