Adrian Chiles has opened up about the moment he broke down in tears on live radio for the first time in more than three decades. The broadcaster, reflecting on an interview with psychology professor Katriona O'Sullivan, wrote in The Guardian about how her story left him sobbing on air.
Three words that sparked tears
Chiles, who was born in Birmingham, became particularly emotional while discussing O'Sullivan's impoverished childhood in nearby Coventry. The trigger was a phrase from her award-winning memoir Poor (2023).
'As for the bit that had me choking up on live radio, it was talking about three words that jumped out of a sentence in her book describing her love, her need, for school dinners,' Chiles wrote.
He quoted the passage: 'Other kids, the loved ones, they sometimes complained, but I didn't give a s**t what was served. I'd have eaten anything.' The phrase 'the loved ones' struck him deeply. 'What it must be like to think that everyone but you is loved,' he reflected.
O'Sullivan's heartfelt response
After reading Chiles' article, O'Sullivan responded on Instagram. 'What a lovely thing to wake up to,' she began. 'A lovely article about me and my story by the lovely Adrian Chiles. The end line got me. I know my story so well but I sometimes forget that I was not loved. And how I knew that from as early as I can remember. Not in the way other kids are loved.'
She added: 'Maybe that is really what poverty is, it is the feeling that we are not loved because of being poor and hurt.'
