Carol Vorderman has opened up about her turbulent TV career, admitting that she 'hated' appearing on one particular BBC reality show and would 'never do it again'.
Speaking to actress Sally Lindsay on her 'A Night In' podcast, Carol revealed that not all her reality show experiences proved enjoyable: 'I did Strictly in the second series. Clare Sweeney persuaded me to do it because she was in series one. And I hated it.'
Paired with professional dancer Paul Killick, Carol departed the BBC programme relatively early: 'I won't do that again,' she quipped. 'Not that they'd ever ask.'
Other shows she would never do
Carol, whose outspoken political commentary is as renowned as her mathematical prowess, went on to mention programmes she would categorically dismiss: 'I would never do Big Brother. I'd be cancelled before I set foot through the bloody door.'
Her stint on the BBC's flagship popular science programme Tomorrow's World is another chapter she has no desire to revisit, she informed Sally.
'I'd been on Countdown a long time and I'd been offered various bits and pieces,' Carol recalled. 'But then the BBC rang up my agent one day and they said, 'we'd really like to talk to you – we're thinking of changing all the presenters on Tomorrow's World – because we've done a focus group and in our focus group we gave a list of 20 names and 80% of the people said 'We want Carol Vorderman'.'
The Tomorrow's World contract conflict
The role required just a single day's work each week, and Carol's agent had secured a decent fee, though there was a significant snag: 'They sent the contract through and it said that I was exclusive to the BBC and I couldn't do Countdown anymore.'
She told her agent: 'That's never going to happen. I'm not giving Countdown up ever. That's not going to happen.'
Ultimately, the BBC agreed to meet Carol's requirements and she began presenting Tomorrow's World. But while filming in Australia, she got a call to ring her agent.
BBC bosses had only just discovered she'd been appearing in regular advertisements for washing powder well before joining the corporation. 'Loads of arguments went on and then in the end they said 'You're sacked.' Carol had been contributing to several other BBC projects, including a regular column in Radio Times magazine, yet she was stripped of all of them in one swift move.
Fighting back and returning
The dismissal became front-page news. 'So I fought back through the press,' Carol said. 'I wrote articles saying 'Hang on, this is just sexism. I'm sacked for doing an advert when Noel Edmonds is doing Noel's Maxwell House coffee adverts and Terry Wogan, who was one of their biggest stars was doing British Gas.'
Although Carol challenged the BBC's decision, the furore eventually subsided and she returned to Countdown alongside her close friend Richard Whitely. However, within a few months, the BBC came calling once more, revealing that viewing figures for Tomorrow's World had fallen sharply following her exit.
She was invited to meet the programme's editor, who implored her to return — but with one stipulation: 'He said the fatal words,' Carol recalled. 'He said: 'If you tell anyone that we're offering you your job back, we will deny it.''
'So I went 'Fine.' I rang my agent as soon as I came out of the meeting – it's terrible, really – I said, John, keep stringing them along till a week or two before transmission and then tell them where to go. That's what we did!'
