YouSaid · the spoken record

Richard Osman

lines on the record: 126
first: 2022-10-20
most recent: 2022-10-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Is that useful to people? I don't know, other than to say, keep your eyes open and your ears open all the time and be listening to the world. Just see how the world is spinning. See how it's working. And sometimes there is if you're in TV, it's seeing how a particular television program works. That's sort of a very direct bit of copying. But almost always, it's then you're on the bus and someone says something to their kid or someone's late for school and they're running and you kind of go wait a minute. That reminds me of something. So it's eyes open, ears open all the time and just allow things to bump into each other, I would say.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you come up with stuff that's new that other people haven't spotted. Yeah, he does a French. I won't do his accent. It's almost comically French. And he was saying, yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I do. And I say, how do you experience that? I said, because I know how I experience it. And I experience it. There's five or six clouds of things going around the outside of my head at any given time, something I've just seen on TV, something I just read in the newspaper, something somebody said to me, something my mum said to me, something that's happened at home. Five is at different things. And occasionally two of those things will bump into each other. And you go, whoa, I never thought of that before. And so without saying that, I said, how do you experience creativity? And he said, well, I just, I got all these concepts sort of, they sort of rush around the outside of my head, and occasionally two of them will bump into each other, or three of them will bump into each other, and suddenly I've got something new. And that's how I've always experienced creativity.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's a tricky one because it's always just been the way that my brain has worked. I was talking to husband of a friend of mine who's a working class French guy who is a maths genius. So he grew up in the Banieux of Paris and at about 11 years old gets plucked out of the school system and taken to this like ele for mathematicians because he's a genius and since has made a fortune in the city's algorithms. That's his thing trading algorithms because it's the maths As I was talking to him, we were on holiday recently, and I said,”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In it for the lifestyle, and it didn't watch Telly. There's people even now who don't watch Telly. You just think, come on, do something else.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Involved too much in the real business side of things and exploitation and rights and foreign sales and distribution and all of that. I was just sat in a creative hub really just coming up with ideas, just sort of feeding the engine. And I was able to do it because I would sort of be doing it anyway. I would sit at home and do that if I wasn't in that office. I would be thinking, this is the thing I would love to see on TV. And I was just lucky enough to be in an environment where I could have an idea on a Tuesday and we could set it on a Thursday. And it comes from, I loved it, but the second you second guess yourself or the public or go, what would people like? I don't buy it. I don't buy it when people write books like that. I don't buy it when people make TV programs like that. And I was surrounded by people in that industry early on, not so much endemal, where we were TV lovers, but earlier on where it was full of people who were just.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know about this, and it's very rare that I would go to a pitch meeting thinking I don't know about this one, but they would buy it in the room. And then you got to make it. And guess what? It's really hard to make because no one cares. No one watches it because they can tell doesn't come from anyone's heart. So you don't get a second series. And TV business is all about second series and third series. You make no money from a first series. So I've definitely been in rooms where I pitched stuff that I didn't care about. But every time there's something you really care about and you can sell and then you will give it your absolute best shot making it because I sort of, I know how to make it because this is the thing I want to watch. It was like books. I wrote books that I would like to read that I didn't see out there. And with TV programs, it just, oh my God, you'd have an idea in the morning and just go, I would love to watch that. I would love to watch that. Then you sit down, you workshop it, you work it out, and then you go and pitch it. And, you know, that was my entire career. I never really got.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, that's the thing I've never really bothered thinking about what people want. And I think the second you do that, that's a lie, actually. So endomole, which I ran with a group of people for many years, after Big Brother and various things, there was a point probably sort of 2006, 2007, where we got so huge and so powerful that we could sort of sell anything, if that makes sense. Or not that we could sell anything, but people were so desperate to have product from us that they were buying substandard things. So, you know, there's a couple of times where I went in and we sold shows that actually I was thinking.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then I would try and sell them. And, you know, that's the thing that I love. If I've had any success, it's been thinking of ideas that I would like to watch and then packaging them in such a way that someone at Channel 4 or the BBC will give you 4 million quid for it, which is a big ask, you know, selling a TV show is quite a big ask. It's like being a car salesman. You know, you don't need to sell that many cars to be successful. And the TV is the same way. You've just got to make sure that you've got the best car out there. And so, yeah, I think a mix of the introversion of loving sitting down and working things out and working out formats and then the extroversion of being able to say to people, I think this is really going to work for your channel. You know, those two things together have always driven me. I'm creatively, I'm incredibly ambitious. I love to create new things. And in business terms, I'm also incredibly ambitious, which is I like to build value and I like to make money for people.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Something I like enough people will like that it's a TV show. So I've always loved that. I've always loved creativity. I've always loved, you know, sitting down with a pen and paper and knocking things into shape. And I've always loved sport and the formats of sport and knockouts and stuff like that. So in jeopardy, that's very, very natural to me as well. But then I also, for reasons unknown to me, I love sales. I love selling. You know, I absolutely love going in and pitching. And the thing I love about it is working at what people want and why and how they're going to respond and how to give them the thing that they want. And so that combination of I would come up with things I was proud of.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it's a good question. I mean, I love, and one I feel more comfortable talking about now, I've sort of stepped off that carousel. Now, I think that I love television. And I loved seeing what entertained people. And I've got quite mainstream tastes. So it was in my DNA. I wasn't having to leave university going to television to think, right, what do people like? I've never, ever, ever had to go into work and say, what do people like? I sort of know.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You to do is panic. You know, that's the one thing it wants because that's where it thrives. It thrives on the chaos. That's what it wants. It wants you to be off balance. So you have to sort of occasionally just go, I get it, you're in charge for a few days or for a week or so or a month. You do your thing. I'm going to try and just live in good faith in the rest of my life and just sort of let you burn out.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that's it. And the key is not to panic when it raises its head again. The key is never to think, oh, I'm never going to be rid of it. The key is to go, oh, I'm never going to be rid of it. That's the thing. As soon as the second you go, oh, it's always going to be there. It's very freeing because you kind of go, okay, listen, every now and again, it's going to flare up. But I don't need to panic. I don't need to go, all this work I've done, all this work I've done on myself, all these books that I've read, and it's still there. It hasn't gone away. And the second you go, it's staying, right? It's like I have a sofa you don't like in your living room, right? It's not going anywhere, okay? You just have to learn to live with it. You know, sometimes you can look around, you don't even notice the sofa anymore, and sometimes you go, oh my God, look at that sofa, right? It is staying. And if you, it gives you a lot of power to know that it's staying and that when it's in charge, which it will be sometimes, that it's okay just to go, no, listen, just let it, let it do its thing. And the one thing that that addicted part of your personality”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Important. And then, you know, it's nice for me to be able to speak publicly about it because I do think. There aren't enough male role models saying that food can be difficult and food can be an issue. And so I'm happy to be one. I'm sort of not. I'm embarrassed. Don't get me wrong. It's embarrassing for me to talk about. I absolutely put that on the record. You know, I'd rather not be talking about it. But the things that come from it are more powerful. And the more I talk about it, the less power it has over me. And hopefully the more I talk about it, the less power it might have over other people.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I have found it. And listen, it's really, really hard is the truth. And I get it with alcoholics and drug addicts. You can just cut off drinking booze and taking drugs. That's incredibly difficult. And I see the struggles that people have with it. And again, it's a lifelong thing. And every day you think, please, today, just let me drink today. I would love to have a drink. You know, you'll never meet an alcoholic who wouldn't just love to have a drink today. And with food you do have to eat. So you have to put in a slightly more different set of rules. But you just have to give yourself boundaries and know that you mustn't cross those boundaries. But yeah, I think that honestly shining a light on things is the thing. Talk to people about it. Talk to people you love. You know, you'll be shocked. And I was shocked when I opened up to people. And the people closest to me I opened up and they went, yeah, of course, of course I know, of course I know that. But once they know about it, they can help, you know. And that's very powerful and it's very, very...”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Addicted behaviors or whatever it is come from childhood and come from a self that we built up almost always to protect ourselves from something. Have to love it a bit. You have to love this thing that you've set up to protect yourself. But also you have to talk to it. And when you're talking to it, you have to understand that there's two sides of yourself and you've got to build up the one that's talking to it. You've just got to build it and build it and build it and give it strength. And it's hard to do and you'll find different ways of doing it and different people will find different ways. But just remembering that the one that's saying, hold on, maybe I shouldn't have a drink. That is equally valid as the one who's saying I should have a drink. The one who's saying you should have a drink. It's got a point. Of course he's got a point. You know, it kind of works for you. It numbs things. You know, listen, you wouldn't do it if it hadn't worked, you know, and you like it. So it's valid. But this other one is also valid. And maybe, maybe listen to it a bit more often and just give it a bit more airtime. And then over the years, you might find that it's got more power than the other one.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you can become conscious about it in some way. So say I've just eaten some food and I'm feeling ashamed about it because I just was sitting there and just thinking I was so dumb. Why have I done this again? Have a conversation with yourself. He said, right, now that conversation, that's you talking to you, okay? Both of those bits are perfectly valid. Now, one bit is the one that's harmful to you, that's you, and the other bit is the bit that's trying to save you. That's you as well. And the key thing is just start practicing the muscles on the one that's trying to save you. You know, just give it a bit more airtime each time. Just give it a few more arguments each time. The other one's never going away, and it never will any addict, I'll tell you. That's never going anywhere. In some days it's so powerful, you know, but you have to let the other side of the argument. You've got to give it some strength. You've got to send it to the gym, you know. And that's the thing. It's saying you're always going to have this, all right? Because most people's...”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Shame be what it is. If you can let panic or anxiety or however you experience what it is, however you experience the thing where you just realize that this ain't right. You know, this is not who I want to be or how I want to be whatever that feeling is for you, let it be what it is for a while because it's not going away anytime soon. You know, if you want regime change, right, that's slow. You know, that boots on the ground, you know, it's bit by bit. So let it be what it is. Allow it. Shine a light on it. And he'd always say, you know, If you're in a moment of shame,”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think his key thing is this idea of shame and the things that make us feel ashamed. Because here's the thing. If you start feeling ashamed, you then start feeling ashamed of being ashamed. In the same way anyone's ever had a panic attack will tell you, if you stop panicking, you then panic about panicking. Or if you start feeling anxious, you're then anxious about your anxiety. And that's the absolute thing you have to stop. That's the cutoff. So if you're feeling shame or you're feeling panic or you're feeling anxiety, let it be. Okay, stay for a reason. It's looked after you for many years, which is another thing. You've got to make peace with this way that you've tried to protect yourself through shame or through panic or anxiety, right? Just let it be what it is. And once you do that, it burns itself out. And listen, it'll come back tomorrow and it'll come back the next day. But what it doesn't do is spiral and spiral and spiral and lead you to self-medicate. You know, if you can just let...”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“grateful for everything that he's done and the wisdom he showed me. And one of the things I try and do in the books and in everywhere is try and pass that on because I was lucky enough to be able to afford this guy who's not insanely, but it's difficult to find a therapist. And part of my job is any bit of wisdom he passes to me is I try and pass on because that's I feel like that's something that I can do and try and give people the thing that I've been given.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Honestly, I was really ready for it, is the truth. I wasn't even kind of. I was praying that it was going to work rather than thinking it wasn't going to work. And from the second I walked in, this guy called Bruce and he's brilliant. And he, you know, he talked me through the problem. Just, you know. And I said, oh, blah, blah, blah, this is the problem. And overeating, but, you know, maybe it's okay because, you know, so I was giving it all this. And I was saying, but actually it's sort of fine because, you know, I'm doing this and, you know, I can control it. And let me talk for about 10 minutes and he just said, and how's that all working out for you? And he thought, yeah, well, you're right. It's working out terribly for me. And from that moment, he had me. I just thought, okay, let's go on this journey. And like a personal trainer, you just think, okay, I trust you. You know, absolutely, you've seen it all before. You understand all of these things. You can use my cleverness to your benefit. And it's just been, I'm so immense.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I always knew something was wrong. But again, I think probably I'd added it to the list of things that were weird about me that I'm tall and I can't see. And I got this weird food thing. So I just thought, you know what, you're not really fit for this world is the truth. And you have all of these things that are up with you. So I think I just put it in the list of things that I wasn't probably built to live the life that other people were living. And again, of course, these days, you realize everyone is. Everyone's not built. Everyone goes home and does something weird, not everyone. But you know what I mean? So many people have got their thing, but I didn't know that in those days. I didn't know. I just thought that I was uniquely, you know, not. fit for these times.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, not really. I mean, I could tell I was overweight, but like most addicts, you know, you can, it's amazing how secret you can be about things is the truth, you know, how you can buy things in secret, consume them in secret, lock yourself away, you know, not be around people just so you can eat. And plus, of course, don't forget you can then go out for a pizza with all your mates who were having their one meal of the day and you've been eating all day but you think, oh great, I get to have a pizza as well. So, you know, socially you can eat a lot as well and then go home and eat more and eat more convenience foods and what have you. So yeah, I always knew.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Probably at some point I was going to have to do something about it, but it took a long time. I'm shocked about how long it took before I finally went, do you know what this is, I need to do something about it.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think you can't fool everybody except yourself finally. And just, you know, a lifetime, you know, when I was a kid, I would secretly eat and I would find ways to get food and to, you know, and my mum would go, oh, where have all those crisps gone? That's weird. And you'd be like, and, you know, then she started hiding the crisps in places because she thought they kept going missing. Just every day of every month of every year since then, just hunting down and finding the food that I wanted. and feeling ashamed about it afterwards so i i knew amongst the success i was having and the friends i had and the lovely time i was having with people i knew i had this weird secret thing that wasn't going away and that made me unhappy and certainly made me unhealthy and that”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The second you shine a light on it. Listen, some people listening will won't believe it exists. That's, by the way, absolutely fine. Listen, we believe what we believe. But I'm talking to the people for whom this behavior might feel familiar or who've got friends or relatives, to whom this behavior might feel familiar. It's real. You know, it's a real thing. And it's quite hard to get your way out of because you have to eat, right? There's ways through it and the first way through it is to shine a light on it and just say, oh no, no, no, that's me. And to try and take that shame away from it a bit.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Every day from my 20s and 30s. That's what I've done. When I'm in an episode, everything is like Christmas Day. I'm not eating because I'm hungry. I'm eating because the food is there and because I need to not be sitting by myself and thinking about whatever I need to be thinking about it. So, you know, it's that idea. It's that sort of, it's not, oh, aren't I naughty? I had a cream cake. You know, aren't I naughty had a cream cake? And then I had the other three. And then 20 minutes later, when like there's even the tiniest amount of space, I went out and got some more food.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and again, look, it's shaming for me to do so. But a good example would be. I remember one of the first years talking to the therapist about it and it was sort of mid-December. So I wasn't going to see him for a few weeks. And he said, look, I hope Christmas Day is not too triggering because people eat so much on Christmas Day. You know, the classic thing on Christmas Day, oh my God, all this and all the chocolates and the crisps. And we had a meal anyway. And then there's cheese at night and blah, blah, blah. And I said, honestly, I've eaten like it's Christmas Day.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's my path to getting better. You never not be an addict, but that's my path to kind of going, okay, I get it. I see what this is”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The messages I get from people just saying, yeah, that's me, or my husband came into the kitchen in tears and just said, that's me. That's been me for 20 years. And that's the thing that I've got and has never spoken about it to people. So I think it's really, really, really common. Also, why wouldn't it be, you know, given the food industry, right? Why wouldn't it be? Why would food addiction not be a thing? And so I think, yeah, those behaviors where you just go, do you know what I've got these wonderful kids, I've got this great career, and yet I'm still secretly eating and feeling deeply ashamed of myself, you know, what's that, right? And after a while, you think, oh, maybe it's not the food, maybe it's me, you know, maybe the food is a symptom of something rather than the problem. Which of course is the case, you know, booze is never the problem, is it? Drugs are never the problem that what you're running from is the problem. So, yeah, I went to therapy. And honestly, from the first session I did,”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just overeating and binge eating and all that, just inability to control food in any way whatsoever. Or if I was controlling it, just being incredibly strict. So either sort of dieting or being out of control with food, which is much more common than I think we allow as a culture. I think alcoholism and drug addiction we get, we understand and this pathways to sort of getting better. But I think food addiction is the sort of last taboo. I haven't spoken about it before.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So that's the first time I went into therapy, which again, from my background, is not something I would have considered. But it got to such a stage. And I was so tired of this behavior. How weird it was and how dumb it made me feel.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think if you are going to be an addict, which is almost always how do I run from this pain, how do I run from the fact that I'm not where I need to be, when you're nine, food is probably the only thing that's available to you. Food attachment may be, you know, there's only a certain amount of things a nine-year-old has at their disposal hot wheels. I mean, there's not a lot you can get addicted to. And so, you know, I would have addictive behaviors around food. I never sat and thought, oh, I've got a problem with my life. I never thought that. I never thought, oh, you know, I'm not who I'm supposed to be. But I definitely thought was, why do I have these eating behaviors? That's weird. And in a way that explained my weirdness away for me, I went, you're weird because you have this weird eating patterns. That's the thing that makes you weird. And you think that's lots of things that make me weird. And so that's the thing that I went to get help for.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know, it's an interesting one, really, because professionally I was doing the thing that I loved. I started working in Telly at 21. I haven't had a day off since. And I was being successful because I came from a home where I watched TV and I was in an industry full of people who didn't watch TV. It was very, very easy for me to rise through the ranks and to make shows and to invent my own shows and to sell them because I felt very, very at home. And so I was being successful and I was exec producing shows and all sorts of things. And I had kids very young, which I'm delighted I did because I'm 51 now and they're like both in their 20s, which is amazing. You know, my big presenting issue was a food addiction and weird behavior around food, which I can sort of see would be what a nine-year-old would have set up for himself.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, you live with it and your behavior sort of changes, and you kind of go, Oh no, I am a weird person, so I have to hide that away or explain away why I'm weird. You know, I'm very grateful that the one thing I always had was I was good with words. I was able to put things into words. I was always able to make people laugh. And so for years, I've been able to paper over the cracks of all of that because I had all this stuff, but I knew that I could sit in a room and make people laugh. And I knew I could say the right things to people. And so I sort of got away with it for years and years and years is the truth.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And something's just my height and sort of thing I'm going to look stupid. Oh, I'm going to look stupid. I'm going to roller coaster thing. And also, what if I legs don't fit on that? And, you know, just silly little things. And, you know, the world will not, the world is not shy in letting you know that you're weird, you know, that there's something weird about you. And certainly that's what I felt. I felt weird. And of course, as soon as you feel weird, you have to sort of...”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, sort of in my teenage year, I was sort of very tall from about 17 probably. I was always tall, but kind of nice, oh, you're the tallest in your class. And that's, you know, which is quite a fun thing to be. You know, and that's what you want. You want to be 6'2", right? That's what, you know, anyone who's 5'9 or 6'7", we all want to be 6'2". And yeah, so sort of 17, 18, and when I was off to university, which again is very, you know, so I'm sort of this guy who is much too tall and is awkward about being tall, who can't see anything who's quite an introvert anyway. And I sort of had this false self anyway from when he was nine years old and his dad left and everything was okay. So, you know, there was a real sort of storm of things brewing there. As I say, all of which have brought me good things in the end. But, you know, I think meant that, you know, I didn't live the life I should have done for many years because I was sort of hiding away from things, some things I have to hide away from because with my eyesight, I just can't. It's not safe for me to do various things.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Body shaming. I mean, that's what that is. I would never have thought of it as that. I just was embarrassed. It just made me feel shy. Made me not want to go out. But it's body shaming. And actually having it named, you just think, oh, good for you. And it's the younger generation who do it. They're so great. And they just say, no, come on. That's body shaming. And you think, oh, that's such a lovely sort of thing to have in my armoury. They're going to go, yeah, that's exactly what you're doing. And again, 90% of people, they mean nothing by it. And I get it. But it's just boring. And 10% of people, you just think, oh, you're very unpleasant.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Impossible, or you know, sit on the island and sit, I'm like, Yeah, I take it seriously. And every single time they say it. Now, that's just a tiny example, but recently people are saying, oh, you mustn't body shame. I thought, well, that's interesting because body shaming is sort of something that, you know, certain people say that, oh, that's what a snowflake talking about body shaming. But actually, it really, I'd think, yeah, that's what you're doing. That's what people have done to me for the last 30 years. They body shame me. Like, because they've talked about my stature and I felt ashamed.”
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“But I get it every single time someone does it. So just think for one second, has this guy ever heard this before? Has he heard this thing before? Is it a fun thing to say to him? Because to me, if I go to a gig of cinema, it's a nightmare because I don't want to be in front of anyone. I go out of my way to be as far back as possible, which when you can't see me.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Has taught me about microaggressions and has made me try and fight for people who are different and has made me just say to people, if someone is different, right, just talk to them normally. You don't need to, we never had the word, but sometimes I'll sort of tweet something about, oh, I love this film or I went to see this gear, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like 10 people go, oh, glad I wasn't behind you. And you know what? It's a perfectly harmless joke, right? Perfectly harmless. I get it. I understand why people do it.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's just you and five other people every single day forever. And, you know, I've had that with my height forever and ever and ever incredibly self-conscious. And most people are perfectly nice. Some people are horrible because some people, it's a really good radar for what people are like. I call it a C word radar sometimes, this being different in any way, which perhaps you'll agree with, which is so many people are sort of lovely on chat. But then, you know, a couple of times a day, there's just someone who wants to shout you out of a window or just wants to make you feel small, ironically. You know, that's what they want to do. And you just think, why? What someone's a bit different to you and you've got to shout something and make yourself feel a bit better. And so being different in any way whatsoever, I think, really teaches you about people and about the hate that's out there and about the unhappiness that's out there because that's where it all comes from. And so being tall.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Nonstop, you know, mostly in people that are not being cruel, sometimes they are. Now I have a height, so I'm not being discriminated against because of my height, right? That's not, you know, it's not costing me anything, but I do know that every single day of my life I'm reminded of it, every single day just non-stop. And so I know that to be a person of color, to be differently gendered, to be all of these things, I know that the microaggressions I get, you are getting non-stop every day of your life and in a much more harmful way. So I've always hopefully, really, really understood the idea of microaggressions and that idea that please, I hear this every single day, even if you're trying to be kind, you know, if you see somebody as different, they do not need to be told. They do not need it pointed out every single day because everyone has told them their entire life that they're different. And I know you're just thinking, yeah, but it's just me.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's quite surprising. Well, I'm six foot seven, which is too much, is the truth. And it makes her extraordinary. My eyesight is not, people can't see that. Okay, so that's mine, and that's internalized. And, you know, I deal with that how I want to. My height is something that people can always see. And I find it fascinating again in this world of social media when people talk about microaggressions and stuff that you must have seen your entire life, which is if you're different in any way, right? You're reminded of it.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So many TV shows, and we were talking just what we came on air about how shows are edited, and I'm thinking about House of Games, I think about Dragon's Den. They're edited in a very sort of military way. You know, they got the same shots each time. And the one thing I've got control over is what I say. And the second something is on AutoQ. You say the same thing because the producers put the same thing in because they've got other things to be worried about. And the fact that I don't have it on AutoQ means I just say different things each time, you know, and it's looser and it's freer and people can watch five episodes in a week and I haven't introduced any of them in the same way to the others. And so I've turned that thing of not being able to see to an advantage, which is, you know, I present television shows differently in a way that's hopefully a bit freer and feels a bit more natural.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, exactly. I've always, yeah, my asset's always been blurry and it's like an uncontrollable moving of the pupils. I did once I never use AutoQ on television, so I can't see it. And once when I did, have I got news for you? Because it's all gags that are written. And I was hosting, they said, you're going to have to use it. Usually I can learn stuff, but that is a whole script worth of gags, so I couldn't. So they said, look, this is the auto queue that Brucey uses, so you'll be fine. And even that, it wasn't big enough. I said, you've got to move it nearer, make it bigger. In the end, we got it big enough. But when people were watching it, they said, oh, is Richard Osman drunk? Because they could see the effort of having to focus on something. My eyes were going absolutely crazy. So people think you're drunk. And so I never hosted it. I just went, you know what? I'll be a guest where I don't have to do it. And I never use AutoQ on any shows. And again, that's one of those silly things where what feels like a disadvantage is a huge advantage because, you know.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And this is the age of television. You know this at my generation. I think perhaps your generation, the next one, is going to be much less so, but television is the thing. It's in the corner of everybody's rooms. And it shows us so many things. It teaches us so many things. But it's so, it became too successful that we sort of take it for granted. And now we'll say, oh, TV's collapsed. And you go, yeah, but country far's getting six million viewers. You know, that's like, it's a lot of people, you know, and so much of what I know about the world and what people like and politics, and that comes from TV and what people watch.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I am interested. The reason I don't want to travel is I don't want to travel. I don't want to get on a plane. I don't want all of that. But I want to learn about places. I want to see things. And TV, it just shows you everything and it showed me everything. And it introduced me to people. And, you know, even now I watch daytime TV. I get so much information about human beings from watching those shows and seeing people's reactions, which I don't see in real life. You know, because I'm up close to it. I get to see it all. And TV's given me all of that, you know. I think TV is so huge and such a huge part of our culture. I think we forget it exists. I think we forget quite what a powerful thing it is. We talk about cinema and music and all this kind of stuff.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, everything's in a fog. I mean, that's the point. So I never notice details. If I want to see a bird in a tree or a cricket ball going towards a bat, that's not something I can see. Never will do. We can't drive or anything like that. It was on TV, the whole world is out there. I can go in, you know, I've never been a big traveler or anything like that. I want to stay at home. But I can watch any country in the world.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Career in Teddy, because we didn't know anybody like that. But I think she just sort of trusted that something was going in that, you know, I was never interested in schoolwork. I just not, it wasn't my thing at all. I could get by, but it never sparked my interest, really. But TV always did, and the stuff I was watching and sport always did. You know, I'd watch and watch and watch. And that's, you know, almost all my lessons were taken, you know, again, with someone who's very visually impaired. I can sit up very close to the telly. So, you know, so many of my lessons are from TV, not from the real world, because the real world, I can't really see it, you know.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, yeah, and listen, we can always look back in hindsight and go, she was a genius. She knew that that was going to be my career. But I think that she realized when I was watching TV that I wasn't doing it passively, which is true. When I was watching TV, I was always looking at the credits. Who does what on a TV show? What are the names of these people? And, you know, if there were jokes on a sitcom thinking, oh, that's interesting. Why did that make me laugh? But that bit doesn't make me laugh. Or formats, you know, why do they always end on a round and a quisher where you can catch up loads of points? What's that about? So I was never watching passively. I was always fascinated with that. I was always interested with it. And I think that she, I see it with my son and computer games. He plays games all the time. But then he's talking to me about the industry and he's talking to me about how they monetize it. And he's talking to me about, you know, different forms of games. And I just think, great, you could keep playing games then because that's the thing that you love. And so long as you're interested in how it's put together, then, you know, that can become a career. And I don't think my mum thought that I ever would have it.”
2022-10-20 · The Diary of a CEO · Richard Osman: The Untold Story Of A TV Legend's Addiction · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT