Not every star on their Gogglebox sofas is as comfy as they look, as Alastair Campbell discovered.
According to his daughter, Grace, the former Number 10 chief press secretary absolutely ‘hated’ his time on the Channel 4 reality show.
Alastair, 69, appeared on Celebrity Gogglebox in 2023 alongside his 32-year-old daughter to react to the latest TV and box office hits.
‘My dad hated it from start to finish,’ Grace revealed to Bang Showbiz. ‘He did not enjoy it. It wasn’t that pleasurable because he was in quite a bad mood.’
While plenty of viewers would like to watch TV as their day job, the set-up was driving The Rest Is Politics host up the wall.
Grace shared: ‘My dad’s quite impatient; he doesn’t understand that cameras take a while to set up and all of that stuff.
‘So I enjoyed it, I was very happy that we were doing it, but he was a bit like, “What is this?”‘
She also noted that he had ‘never watched the show before’ so was walking in a bit blind to the process.
Unfortunately, the situation wasn’t helped when the former spokesperson for Tony Blair was largely left out of the final cut.
Grace said they felt they were ‘hardly’ in the show that aired, despite hours spent filming reactions.
Referring to Celebrity Gogglebox’s producers, she said: ‘We watched it, and we were hardly in the edit. We were like, “Did they miss us?”‘
While it ranks ‘relatively high’ in the blossoming career of Grace, who is a comedian and podcast host, her dad wasn’t so cheery.
Her dad became ‘dysregulated and amusing’ while Grace admitted she’d ‘forgotten’ they were in it at all until her friends began to message.
‘I wore odd socks which, like, none of my friends have forgiven me for,’ she joked. ‘They were like, “Your feet were on TV, and you’re wearing odd socks”.’
While she has fond memories of the show, she’s not convinced another double act with her dad is on the cards.
Grace continued: ‘But I don’t think he and I are a natural double-act in the way that some people and their parents are because I think I’m quite chilled, and he likes things to be done quite quickly.’
We won’t be seeing Alastair Campbell racing across the world with his daughter any time soon then.
Grace, however, is racing across the UK and Ireland with her third national comedy tour, The Lady Is a Tramp, beginning on Halloween.
She’s performing in Southampton, Cardiff, Bristol, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Dublin and more until early December with tickets on sale now.