{"id":289045,"date":"2026-01-17T10:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T10:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/289045\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T10:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T10:14:09","slug":"im-a-different-person-now-to-who-i-was-a-couple-of-years-ago-ive-evolved-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/289045\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019m a different person now to who I was a couple of years ago. I\u2019ve evolved\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re sitting in the front room of Ryan Tubridy<\/a>\u2019s mews home in Monkstown, south Co Dublin, where we are meant to be enjoying tea and cake.<\/p>\n

But neither of us is enjoying it \u2013 Tubridy forgot to get milk for the tea and I bought a terrible cake.<\/p>\n

Tubridy is trying hard to be his trademark winsome self and be polite about the barren Bakewell. It is drier than a brick.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not that bad, really,\u201d he says, lying through his teeth. Arid cake crumbs fall from his mouth \u2013 I can hear them bouncing off the coffee table, like pebbles.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow\u2019s the tea?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s grand,\u201d I say, lying through my own teeth, as I swirl the black brew in a cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure, who needs milk anyway?\u201d<\/p>\n

We chat amiably for a while with the rain pelting off the windows. The January weather has turned bad outside, and the late afternoon light is beginning to fade.<\/p>\n

But it is growing darker inside too. Tubridy heaves these big, heavy sighs and I see the tension all over his face. The air is thick with it. It\u2019s not the tea or dry cake. It\u2019s because he knows what\u2019s coming next: I\u2019m going to ask about that thing the RT\u00c9 payments scandal<\/a> that blew up his life in June 2023.<\/p>\n

Tubridy heaves another sigh, a big foreboding one. Then we begin.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the midst of it was really dark. It was heavy stuff,\u201d he says. \u201cI didn\u2019t understand half of what was going on. Then, the attention was so intense. I was just … I was just down.\u201d<\/p>\n

He puffs out his cheeks, pushes away the cake and sits back in his couch, elbows out, fingers interlocked in a grip on the back of his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t out, but I was down. I was on the ground. I saw myself as a character in this story that I wasn\u2019t writing. I was being buffeted all over the place. It was traumatic. I won\u2019t sugar-coat it and say: \u2018Oh, it\u2019s fine. That\u2019s life.\u2019 It\u2019s not life. It wasn\u2019t normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The complex financial controversy blew up when it emerged RT\u00c9<\/a> had publicly understated Tubridy\u2019s pay by a total of \u20ac345,000 between 2017 and 2022. It meant RT\u00c9 could say publicly that his pay each year was below \u20ac500,000 while he had been presenting his Radio 1 show and also The Late Late Show<\/a> on RT\u00c9 television, which he left in May 2023, weeks before the financial scandal emerged. In fact, his total pay was higher. <\/p>\n

Some of Tubridy\u2019s remuneration was secretly funnelled to him by RT\u00c9 through Renault<\/a>, the former sponsor of The Late Late Show. It was paid via a so-called \u201cbarter account\u201d in Britain. Reports by accountants Grant Thornton found that neither Tubridy nor his agent, Noel Kelly<\/a>, had orchestrated the scheme.<\/p>\n

\"RyanRyan Tubridy in D\u00fan Laoghaire. Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien <\/p>\n

But the wider public recoiled at the revelation that it had been actively misled about the pay packet of the State broadcaster\u2019s biggest star. It was an incredible fall from public grace.<\/p>\n

The fallout convulsed the nation during the summer of 2023. It also ripped the lid off a wider financial scandal at RT\u00c9, which, it emerged, had also used barter accounts for lavish corporate spending. Trust between the Government and RT\u00c9 broke down over the broadcaster\u2019s governance and perceived profligacy.<\/p>\n

Tubridy took the brunt of the opprobrium, though he says it wasn\u2019t really his fault, which may rile some of his critics \u2013 of which there are many.<\/p>\n

He accepts blame for some of it, but \u201cnot the bulk\u201d. He was lambasted in the media and by politicians for not challenging the public fiction of his publicly understated pay, which he acknowledges was a mistake.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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\u2019s on me. I accept that, and to those who are annoyed, I hope that gives some class of an answer. I understand their irritation and I don\u2019t want them to think I haven\u2019t thought about that or I don\u2019t care. I do care, but I can\u2019t take the blame for the entire organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tubridy says the criticism he got was so bad during the controversy, he attended therapy to deal with the fallout of being the face of a national scandal. He compares his mental state during it to that of George Bailey, the character played by James Stewart in the classic 1946 Christmas movie It\u2019s a Wonderful Life.<\/p>\n

\n

I think I felt so constantly attacked and, you know, hung out to dry<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Ryan Tubridy<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He says he told this story to guests at his wedding last month. In the film, Bailey tries to kill himself after a financial scandal. Tubridy is clear he wasn\u2019t suicidal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t about to throw myself into the water. But I was the guy at the bar with my knuckles in my mouth, saying: \u2018God, I\u2019m not a praying man, but if you can get me out of this corner, I\u2019d appreciate it,\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen your guardian angel comes down and says \u2018Look, it\u2019s not as bad as you think. Look at your beautiful daughters. Look how they\u2019re thriving. Look at your partner. Look how amazing she is. Look at how your brothers and sisters have just dropped everything to support you. Look at the people you have around you\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tubridy says through therapy and the support of those around him, he realised he wanted to \u201cembrace the world\u201d again. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m in Bedford Falls now.\u201d<\/p>\n

I ask about his summer 2023 appearance alongside Kelly in front of the Public Accounts Committee, where he was criticised by politicians who were examining the RT\u00c9 crisis. I tell him his tone sounded off at that meeting. He seemed too unrepentant, unstable.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t in the whole of my health. I think I felt so constantly attacked and, you know, hung out to dry that I couldn\u2019t bring myself to see the bigger picture. I probably would have done things a little differently if I was on top of my game, but I wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RyanRyan Tubridy has left Virgin Radio UK and is starting a new YouTube series as well as radio projects in 2026. Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien <\/p>\n

We\u2019re sitting in Tubridy\u2019s front room on this rainy Wednesday afternoon because in recent weeks he has moved back to Dublin from London, where he had been working for Virgin Radio. He also got married<\/a> last month in Galway to clinical psychologist Clare Kambamettu, a former Rose of Tralee who he met on his radio show in early 2023, shortly before everything blew up.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Clare Kambamettu: A \u2018tiny but loud minority\u2019 drives racism in IrelandOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Tubridy left for London in January 2024, seven months after he stopped working for RT\u00c9. Last month, his Virgin show ended, although he has other UK projects in the works \u2013 Tubridy says he wanted to leave Virgin anyway.<\/p>\n

He will also do a weekend radio show in Ireland for Onic, the radio group here owned by Rupert Murdoch\u2019s News UK, for which Tubridy also works in London.<\/p>\n

He will also return to Irish screens in coming weeks as a guest on Virgin Media Television\u2019s new show, The Assembly Ireland, where guests are questioned by a panel of neurodivergent people.<\/p>\n

Tubridy will still work roughly half of each week in London, but Dublin is now home again. <\/p>\n

To lighten the mood I ask about life with Kambamettu. It doesn\u2019t lighten the mood at all. Until this point, Tubridy has managed to largely keep a grip on his emotions. Soon he is struggling again.<\/p>\n

His relationship with Kambamettu developed through the spring and early summer of 2023, through his 50th birthday and also his departure from The Late Late Show, which had exhausted him.<\/p>\n

Then one day in June, they were in Clifden. Tubridy says he got a call telling him that the scandal was breaking. \u201cEverything went black,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like: \u2018What? [to the caller]. \u2018I don\u2019t understand a word you\u2019re saying.\u2019 They said: \u2018You\u2019ll know all about it soon enough.\u2019 Then, bang, it was all destroyed. And, my God, doesn\u2019t Clare shine then. She didn\u2019t patronise, she didn\u2019t cry and moan. She just shone. I thought, Wow. And that went on for months and months.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd, you know, I said to her, you can … you can go,\u201d he says, suggesting that he sought to free her from having to sit with him through the darkness.<\/p>\n

\"RyanRyan Tubridy and Clare Kambamettu on their wedding day. Photograph: Aoife Herriott <\/p>\n

Tubridy\u2019s voice breaks. \u201cShe didn\u2019t go. It was an extraordinary test of a relationship. It was so difficult and, you know, she stuck around, and more. Then the sun came out again, and I kind of went back to normal in London, to who I was, but different, if you can be that.\u201d<\/p>\n

At one stage in August 2023, months before he left for London, Tubridy was close to sealing a return to his RT\u00c9 Radio 1 show for a reduced salary. The details were agreed with RT\u00c9\u2019s new director general, Kevin Bakhurst<\/a>, whose predecessor Dee Forbes<\/a> left during the scandal.<\/p>\n

Everything was ready to go for his return. Then Grant Thornton filed its second report, which broadly cleared him and Kelly of blame for the financial shenanigans, although he was still being criticised in the media for not having contradicted RT\u00c9\u2019s understatements of his pay.<\/p>\n

Tubridy released a public statement welcoming the Grant Thornton report and suggesting it had basically exonerated him. He also suggested that in some years the public figures weren\u2019t wrong. But that didn\u2019t take into account the Renault money \u2013 \u20ac150,000 of which he had already promised to pay back, as it was linked to corporate appearances he hadn\u2019t been able to complete because of Covid.<\/p>\n

After this statement, Bakhurst ended the return talks and said RT\u00c9 would \u201cmove on\u201d from Tubridy, although he hinted the door might remain open for him in future.<\/p>\n

Does Tubridy regret blowing up his return?<\/p>\n

\u201cI get on well with Kevin. I thought he was a very reasonable guy. I think there\u2019s a fairness to him. But ultimately, you know, we parted ways. I always got the sense that he might have been pushed into that [ending the talks].\u201d<\/p>\n

Pushed by whom? The RT\u00c9 board?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the board might have been a little bit enthusiastic about my departure. I think [Noel Kelly and I] were very happy that I was vindicated, and not everyone was happy with the vindication.\u201d<\/p>\n

This week, RT\u00c9 told The Irish Times: \u201cThat characterisation of events is incorrect. We have no further comment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tubridy acknowledges he might be wrong about the board nixing his return, and if so, he is being \u201cterribly unfair\u201d. But he still feels \u201cpushed out to the front\u201d by RT\u00c9 as \u201ccover\u201d for the wider scandal.<\/p>\n

\n

I\u2019m a different person now to who I was a couple of years ago. I\u2019ve evolved<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Last August he repaid the \u20ac150,000<\/a> he had promised in 2023 to return. Why now? Despite his previous lofty pay, Tubridy suggests he had to make it before he could pay it back.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I was in a position to repay it \u2013 and it took a while, of course \u2013 I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says the return of the cash was not part of any deal to come back to RT\u00c9. He acknowledges he met Bakhurst last summer, \u201cjust for a coffee\u201d, and that he is not in talks about working for RT\u00c9.<\/p>\n

He and Kelly have a data access request in with RT\u00c9 covering mentions of them inside the organisation during the period the scandal erupted. More than two years later, he still hasn\u2019t received the information \u2013 it has been reported RT\u00c9 has spent \u20ac100,000 so far, including legal fees, on the request.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know where that information is. It\u2019s a simple request. We just want to clarify a few things to see what went on. We\u2019re human, we\u2019re curious. But for some reason they seem to be spending an awful lot of money with a lot of lawyers. Why? I don\u2019t know why I don\u2019t have the information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does he think he will ever work for RT\u00c9 again?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not? It would depend on the project. I am a guest on Miriam O\u2019Callaghan\u2019s programme on the Sunday before The Assembly Ireland, which will be the first time I\u2019ve gone through the gates of RT\u00c9 since I left. So that\u2019s kind of interesting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe RT\u00c9 Guide were also on. We all had a smile at that. They want to do a cover story. I didn\u2019t think that would ever happen again. So who knows? Life is so peculiar. I\u2019m not a grudge guy. It\u2019s such a waste. We will all be dead. What\u2019s the point?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d hate to be hit by a bus tomorrow thinking that was the end of my relationship with RT\u00c9. It was a very important place to me,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He says he never, at any stage, considered ditching Kelly as his agent. He says they are \u201cbest friends\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"NoelNoel Kelly and Tubridy leaving the Public Accounts Committee. Photograph: Colin Keegan\/Collins <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been through stuff together, personally and privately, and we stick together. We respect each other and we have great fondness for each other. It would have been lousy to ditch him. I don\u2019t think people who ditch their friends because the weather\u2019s bad are good people.\u201d<\/p>\n

From next week, Tubridy will be in London most Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. He has given up his rented flat in St John\u2019s Wood in London.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ryan Tubridy in London: He still has the Tiggerish verve and breezy name-drops. So why does it feel sour?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He says Virgin is tilting the station away from talk radio and back towards music, which is why his show won\u2019t continue \u2013 but he says he would have moved back to Dublin anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo years in London was enough. I was ready to come home.\u201d<\/p>\n

He will stay working for the Murdochs\u2019 News UK through several projects. One is a series of podcast interviews with sports stars who have been knocked down but got back up again. It will also be broadcast on the group\u2019s TalkSport station.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about resilience. They thought I\u2019d be a good guy to do those.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second is a YouTube series of online obituaries of people who seem likely to die soon. It\u2019s called The Late Show, which he says is \u201ccheeky \u2013 but at least I dropped a \u2018Late\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ryan Tubridy attempts to reinvent himself on YouTube. Will it work?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, if Dick Van Dyke<\/a> [the 100-year old US actor] dies, I\u2019ll have already recorded a conversation about him with the entertainment correspondent for the Times. In the event of him dying, that podcast is banked, ready to go. I\u2019m going to record a batch of them for various people, starting next week. It\u2019s a bit grisly, I know. It will also go out on Times Radio.\u201d<\/p>\n

The third strand to his new deal with News UK is a new project with Times Radio that he says he cannot talk about until spring. He also suggests he is in talks about further broadcasting work in Ireland, but not with RT\u00c9. \u201cIt\u2019s still under negotiation,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

After our chat, Tubridy shows me around his attractive but modest-sized mews house. His little red Ford Fiesta is parked outside. If he really is \u201cTubs-o-cash\u201d, as one tabloid called him during the RT\u00c9 scandal, he either hides it well or he has spent it all on books.<\/p>\n

His sittingroom is lined all the way up to the top of its double-height, vaulted ceiling with rows of books. He can only reach the higher ones via a treacherous-looking ladder.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019d be a good way to go,\u201d he says, miming falling. \u201cFalling off the ladder, banging your head off the piano.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tubridy says he took stuff \u201cway too seriously\u201d before.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to be too sensitive,\u201d he says, insisting London and his RT\u00c9 exit changed him. \u201cI\u2019m a different person now to who I was a couple of years ago. I\u2019ve evolved.\u201d<\/p>\n

He acknowledges he had \u201ca little bit of a moment\u201d with his emotions earlier. But he insists that, overall, he is happier now than he has ever been.<\/p>\n

He says he is also grateful for the support he gets from ordinary Irish people.<\/p>\n

\"RyanRyan Tubridy photographed in Dun Laoghaire. Photo: Bryan O\u2019Brien \/ The Irish Times <\/p>\n

\u201cI needed a break from Ireland, time out. But maybe I\u2019ve fallen back in love with it again. It\u2019s like we broke up. But maybe now I want to hold Ireland\u2019s hand again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he throws back his head and laughs. Hopefully at the corniness of the line.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019re sitting in the front room of Ryan Tubridy\u2019s mews home in Monkstown, south Co Dublin, where we…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,144450,78208,18,13,14,2215,6,19,17,16036,48706,11,12,15,16,5,91728,44701,1181,144397,26666,7,8,2212],"class_list":{"0":"post-289045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-dee-forbes","11":"tag-dick-van-dyke","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-for-you","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-kevin-bakhurst","20":"tag-late-late-show","21":"tag-latest-news","22":"tag-latestnews","23":"tag-main-news","24":"tag-mainnews","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-noel-kelly-agent","27":"tag-renault","28":"tag-rte","29":"tag-rte-pay-controversy","30":"tag-ryan-tubridy","31":"tag-top-stories","32":"tag-topstories","33":"tag-weekendreview"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115909916397650023","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}