Victoria Coren Mitchell pleaded with Graham Linehan to leave Only Connect contestants alone. (Getty)
Victoria Coren Mitchell pleaded with Graham Linehan to leave Only Connect contestants alone. (Getty)
Victoria Coren Mitchell, the host of BBC quiz series Only Connect, has pleaded with gender-critical activist Graham Linehan to stop his “relentless” messages regarding trans rights.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, on 3 November, the Father Ted and IT Crowd writer tagged Coren Mitchell in a post, asking whether a contestant on the show should be allowed in women’s spaces.
Graham Linehan, who is known for his outspoken views against the trans community, wrote: “Hey @VictoriaCoren should ‘Emily’ be allowed in women’s sports and spaces? What about female-only shelters and rape crisis centres? A yes or no will suffice!”
Coren Mitchell, who is the wife of comedian and actor David Mitchell, replied to Linehan with a screenshot of a message she had typed out, which exceeded X’s character limit and thus could not be posted directly.
“In my experience Graham, *nothing* will suffice to stop you pestering me. You seem to really want a rise out of me, and I’m not someone who’s comfortable with anger,” she wrote.
“Only Connect is just a harmless quiz show. I try to ignore your relentless messages like I would with any other troll. But on this occasion, out of respect for the friendly relationship we used to have and the brilliant writer you used to be, I will ask you one more time to please, please, please leave us alone.
“If you are still in there somewhere: stop it,” she rounded off. “You MUST be better than this.”
Victoria Coren Mitchell and her husband, David Mitchell. (Getty)
The TV host was applauded for dealing with Linehan’s remarks with “class and respect”.
“Classy response Victoria, as I’d expect. I just don’t know how some people can be so full of hate. It’s incredibly sad,” one X user wrote.
It’s not the first time the TV host has been forced to ask Linehan to stop posting X comments about Only Connect contestants.
In 2022, Linehan accused Coren Mitchel of not “standing up to homophobic sh**e” because Only Connect featured a queer couple.
“Seriously Graham, stop it. I understand what you think you’re doing in your mind, but I promise it looks *horrible*. I’ve told you this privately and I’ll tell you it publicly: they are just people on a quiz, bringing nothing but merriment into the world, please leave them alone,” she urged.
Grilled by an X user on why she was “normalising” the term “queer”, she replied: “Why am I normalising it? It’s not even a word we used on the programme. It’s something Graham says he found when doing background research on our contestants. Why do that? I’m not here for a row, but I find all our quizzers delightful and I will defend them.”
The contestant referred to in Linehan’s latest rant has appeared on series 21 of Only Connect since July. The game show has run on BBC Four and then BBC Two since 2008. Coren Mitchell has hosted the show since its inception.
Graham Linehan. (Getty)
Despite his TV writing career, Graham Linehan is now best known for his activism in opposition of transgender rights. In September this year, Linehan was arrested on suspicion of inciting violence after suggesting that trans women in a “female-only space” should be punched in the genitals.
He was released without charge on police bail, with no further action taking place following a police investigation. The incident led to the Metropolitan police declaring it would no longer investigate non-crime hate incidents.
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