TV Newscaster Who Flipped Off Audience Explains What Really Happened
BBC viewers got a little more than they expected this week when one of the British news channel’s presenters accidentally flipped off the camera.
Maryam Moshiri was hosting the news broadcast when the camera suddenly cut to her when she evidently wasn’t expecting, showing her flipping the audience the bird. Apparently aware of what happened, she began the broadcast with “Live from London, this is BBC News.”
Clips of the incident began to circulate on X (formerly Twitter), with most finding the viral clip amusing. Moshiri eventually released a statement where she apologized for the gaffe and chalked it up to an “inside joke” in the studio gone wrong.
“Hey everyone, yesterday just before the top of the hour I was joking around a bit with the team in the gallery,” she wrote. “I was pretending to count down as the director was counting me down from 10-0.. including the fingers to show the number. So from 10 fingers held up to one.”
As she explained, when the countdown got to one, she “turned finger around as a joke and did not realise that this would be caught on camera. It was a private joke with the team and I’m so sorry it went out on air! It was not my intention for this to happen and I’m sorry if I offended or upset anyone. I wasn’t ‘ flipping the bird’ at viewers or even a person really. It was a silly joke that was meant for a small number of my mates.”
Moshiri has more than 20 years at the BBC, although this is presumably the first time she’s accidentally flipped off her viewers.
Hey everyone , yesterday just before the top of the hour I was joking around a bit with the team in the gallery.
I was pretending to count down as the director was counting me down from 10-0.. including the fingers to show the number. So from 10 fingers held up to one.
When…
— Maryam Moshiri (@BBCMaryam) December 7, 2023
