Ricky Gervais has been accused of erasing his former collaborator Stephen Merchant from the history of The Office after releasing a 64-minute YouTube video celebrating the show's 25th anniversary without mentioning Merchant once. The video, titled 'The 25 Greatest David Brent Moments', saw Gervais react to highlights from the BBC sitcom that launched his career, but fans quickly noticed the omission of the co-creator.
Fan Backlash on YouTube and Reddit
Comments on the video were swift and critical. One user wrote: 'The erasure of Steve (sic) is not a good look,' while another added: 'Give some credit to Stephen Merchant.' User @daleemery9800 was particularly vocal, stating: 'Honestly, the arrogance to have your favourite Brent moments not favourite Office moments. Zero credit for Merchant, who you can tell from your later work is responsible for all the subtlety and brilliant moments.'
On Reddit, the subreddit r/RickyGervais also noticed the absence. User @Double_Sport9468 commented: 'The Merchant erasure is really mental at this point. It’s actually quite sad that he can’t acknowledge him at all. It also seems to be something that’s been picked up by a lot of non-saucer drinkers, judging by the comments of that YouTube vid.' Another user, Gilneedsthis, added: 'No mention of Steve in his posts about The Office on the 25th anniversary. A post I saw said “25 years ago I had my breakthrough show” or some such narcissistic drivel.'
Merchant's Own Tribute
The contrast with Merchant's own anniversary post was stark. Merchant shared the unaired pre-pilot presentation featuring both himself and Gervais, which led to the BBC commission, explicitly acknowledging Gervais's role. This further fueled criticism of Gervais's apparent reluctance to reciprocate.
Longstanding Rumours of a Rift
The pair, who also co-wrote Extras and Life's Too Short, and co-presented An Idiot Abroad, have not worked together since 2013. Speculation of a rift has persisted, with Merchant accused in 2020 of taking a swipe at Gervais's Netflix series After Life. Merchant tweeted that his least favourite storytelling trope is a character 'watching old home movies of dead child/wife to signal an inability to move on,' which many interpreted as a dig at After Life's frequent use of such scenes.
Merchant later denied the accusation, telling The Independent: 'Whenever people stop working as closely together as they were, people immediately assume it’s “knives out.” It was such a strange idea to me, that I’d take a swipe at Ricky by doing a tweet, and [make] an abstract criticism of his show.' He also claimed he had not even seen After Life.
Merchant Denies Falling Out
In 2022, Merchant addressed the rumours again on The Last Laugh podcast. 'I get on perfectly well with Ricky,' he said. 'I just think we started doing slightly different projects. I’ve had enormous success and fun working with Ricky, but I was starting to enjoy working with different people and different collaborators and finding sort of new territory that I don’t think we’re necessarily of appeal to Ricky. And so we just sort of drifted apart creatively, really, but we certainly never had any big falling out or big argument or anything like that.'
Gervais's Previous Comments
Gervais himself has acknowledged the rumours. In a 2018 interview with NME, he said he purposely avoids talking about Merchant or Karl Pilkington because he enjoys annoying fans who speculate about a rift. He denied any falling out, but his latest omission has reignited the debate.
The Office is available to watch now on BBC iPlayer.
