Get the latest gossip
'Amanda went too far': The very curious backstory to Abbington's extraordinary Newsnight interview. So why DID the BBC let her repeat lurid claim that had been dismissed?
Amanda Abbington's Newsnight interview was kept so secret that many at the BBC had no idea it was taking place. Even Giovanni Pernice's team were unaware until a tip off just minutes before it aired.
It is understood that a witness, interviewed by the BBC, explained that they never felt Abbington, 52, was made to feel uncomfortable, and that she tended to be 'in on the joke' and would make similar comments back to Pernice. Abbington's comments were all too much for Pernice to keep his silence and, just before midnight on Wednesday, his spokesman told me: 'It's disappointing that Ms Abbington would knowingly mislead the outcome of the report seemingly in order to further attempt to damage Giovanni's reputation. Yet Derbyshire did ask her about an article by Mail columnist Sarah Vine, in which she wrote: 'Women like Abbington are part of the reason other women who find themselves in genuinely awful and much more serious situations don't get taken seriously.
Or read this on Daily Mail
