Katherine Ryan has addressed the joke she made on Have I Got News For You in late 2025, one which received multiple complaints and reportedly caused offence to Victoria Beckham
Comedian Katherine Ryan has opened up about the aftermath of her controversial joke about former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham. Katherine, 43, was appearing on the BBC’s Have I Got News For You when she made a quip in relation to the famous singer.
The BBC upheld a complaint about a joke made by Katherine on the programme, after viewers said the “obscene term” used had been “gratuitously offensive”. It led to the BBC removing the joke from the episode that aired on November 7, 2025.
During a part of the programme in which a leaked email was discussed in which Victoria’s husband David had allegedly used the C-word, Katherine responded: “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 joke also did not go down well with entrepreneur Victoria, it seems. Speaking to Heat magazine, Katherine said she hoped that Victoria would see it was not meant to be taken seriously.
She said: “If Victoria had seen the broadcast, she would have known it was tongue-in-cheek. I never actually used the c-word – I was being cheeky while trying to wrap up a segment.”
Nevertheless, Katherine added that the singer did reach out to her directly to express her annoyance at the joke before Katherine apologised unreservedly.
Katherine added: “Victoria reached out to me as soon as it happened and said she was offended. I unreservedly apologised and said, ‘I love you and I’m really sorry. This is just how I am and I certainly didn’t mean to hurt any feelings’.”
The comedian added that this was the last she had heard from the former Spice Girl and the pair haven’t been in contact since. She further expressed her hopes that one she and Victoria could “patch things up one day”.
Katherine also took to Instagram last month to address the incident. In a post she: “I’m really sorry, sometimes the jokes don’t land.
“At that time, though there is no defence, I was suffering from a condition called matrescence. I was in that building with a 10-day-old baby.
“Should I have left the house? 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.”
Matrescence is a term coined by anthropologist Dana Raphael in the 1970s and describes the process of becoming a mother. She had recently given birth to her fourth child at the time the episode aired.
Outside of her clash with Victoria, Katherine was also fully of praise for her, especially when it came to her alleged feud with her son Brooklyn Beckham who made a series of allegations about his family earlier this year on social media.
When it came to that dynamic Katherine said: “I hope that relationship heals, but I have always been Team Victoria.”
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: mirror.co.uk
