Anne Robinson has admitted that the brazen comments she used to say to contestants on The Weakest Link wouldn’t stand today.
In 2000, the TV presenter, who began her career in journalism, started presenting the BBC One quiz show, a role she maintained for 12 years.
Anne, 80, quickly became known for her sharp wit and cutting remarks, many of which would now be widely regarded as crossing a line. A fact that even she acknowledges.
The former Countdown host – who’s presenting a new hard-hitting programme called You Be the Judge: Crime & Punishment – spoke to Metro about her latest venture, in addition to delving into her TV career past.
In the TV documentary for 5’s Lawless Britain Season, Anne highlights the need for prison reform, the public view of sentencing in the UK, and explores whether the justice system is ‘too soft’.
Her latest presenting role allowed her to show viewers a different side to herself, one that fans of The Weakest Link might not be used to.
‘I love the documentary. I got rather side-tracked by creating this character for [The Weakest Link] that I took to America,’ she said, referencing when she launched the quiz show in the US in 2001.
‘Very nicely, I earned a great deal by the fact that it was thought I had created the character. By the time we’d signed the contract, it was too late for them to realise it was just me.’
Even 25 years later, some of the remarks Anne used to make towards contestants on The Weakest Link leave people astonished. Like when she asked a woman who works in the food industry: ‘Do you have to taste the products? Is that why you’re a bit overweight?’
However, Anne argues that the quips that she made on the small screen were ‘exactly’ what others were saying at home behind closed doors.
‘On The Weakest Link, what I was saying on television was exactly what your mum and your dad and your grandparents were saying to each other… I was just saying it out loud to millions of people, and you can’t say that now,’ she said.
‘I mean, I used to be able to say to someone who was overweight, “What do you do when you’re not eating?”, and you can’t do that anymore. It’s just a different time, isn’t it?’
That was just one of her many icy and controversial comments, with Anne having also made shocking remarks surrounding contestants’ sexualities in the past.
Nowadays, Anne is turning her focus towards identifying some of the biggest issues our country faces.
Though her current programme follows sentencing and prison reform, the journalist wants to front another highlighting discrimination, particularly towards women in the workplace.
‘I still think girls are way behind when it comes to job interviews and asking for the money they really want,’ she stated.
‘I’d rather like to do a programme teaching girls to negotiate.
‘We just need to get girls tougher to face what they’re facing. There’s still loads of discrimination.’
Anne first began her career in TV from 1986, appearing on Points of View and later on consumer affairs programme Watchdog.
‘In those days, I got the job because I was a writer, not because I had a beautiful face and a shapely body. It’s rather different these days,’ she remarked.
Now, she feels as though her work on 5’s You Be the Judge: Crime & Punishment is a ‘great gift’, because she ‘learnt so much from it’.
‘It’s not as if I knew everything and we were putting it out to other people. There was as much for me to learn as there is for people watching it,’ she said.
‘Most importantly, was learning that long prison sentences don’t work.
‘You see in the documentary that people – particularly those who’ve been affected and the victims of crime – their demands for longer sentences result in more crime, not less crime, because we’ve got a crisis in our prisons.’
Anne urged for more reform and rehabilitation programmes within prisons, outlining how currently, some prisoners leave ‘not being able to read or write’.
‘There are police cells absolutely blocked up because there isn’t the room to send those who’ve been convicted to prison. I don’t think people realise how bad it is.’
Anna emphasised that in her view, the country is ‘not addressing the problem’ of prison reform.
‘If we want the country to be safer, we need less people committing crimes, and you’re less likely to commit a crime if you’ve been in prison for five years and learnt a trade or learnt to read and write,’ she said.
‘Then, the chances are you’ve got something when you get out of prison to look forward to.’A
Anne concluded: ‘I really want the government, just every member of the government, particularly the Home Secretary, to look at this documentary and be very embarrassed and worried by it.’
You be the Judge: Crime & Punishment, part of its Lawless Britain season, will air and stream on 5 from Tuesday May 6 at 9pm.
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