Ryan Tubridy sought therapy to cope with ‘really dark’ feelings in wake of RTÉ pay scandal – The Irish Times

Broadcaster Ryan Tubridy sought therapy to help him cope with “really dark” feelings due to the intensity of criticism he received during the RTÉ payments scandal that precipitated his exit from the State broadcaster.

The former Late Late Show presenter said he “wasn’t in the whole of his health” after the crisis blew up in June 2023, following revelations that his remuneration had been secretly topped up over several years.

“It was heavy, heavy stuff,” he said this week in a wide-ranging interview at his Dublin home with The Irish Times.

“I was down, I was on the ground. I saw myself as a character in this story that I wasn’t writing.”

Mr Tubridy said he accepted some of the blame for not challenging RTÉ’s decision to publicly understate his salary from 2017.

‘Everything went black’

Read the full interview with Ryan Tubridy here.

But he says RTÉ was to blame for “the bulk” of the controversy that erupted. The initial furore over payments to Mr Tubridy later morphed into a wider scandal over RTÉ’s lax financial controls.

“I think if I had my head screwed on better, and if I was a bit more attentive to that side of my life, I would have shouted louder. That’s on me,” he said.

“I don’t want [the public] to think I haven’t thought about that or that I don’t care. I do care, but I can’t take the blame for the entire organisation.”

Mr Tubridy, who moved back to Dublin from London in recent weeks following the end of his daily show with Virgin Radio UK, said he would not rule out a possible future return to RTÉ “if the project was right”.

But he said there had been “zero” talks with the organisation about it. When asked if he would be prepared to go back to RTÉ, he replied: “Why not?”

The presenter confirmed he met RTÉ’s director general Kevin Bakhurst “for coffee” last summer, but he said they did not discuss his potential return.

He confirmed he had been on the verge of returning to his RTÉ Radio show in a deal verbally agreed in August 2023. But Mr Bakhurst subsequently ended the talks over public statements that Mr Tubridy made about the payments scandal.

Mr Tubridy said he believed the RTÉ director general was “pushed” by the organisation’s board into ending those talks with him. “I think the board might have been a little bit enthusiastic about my departure.”

RTÉ said this week that Mr Tubridy’s “characterisation of events” around the ending of those talks “is incorrect”.