Ryan Tubridy sees 'biggest reaction to anything I've done' after revealing verbal attack

Late Late Show host Ryan Tubridy says he wants to spread a message that 'you can’t be a bully'. Picture: Andres Poveda

Late Late Show host Ryan Tubridy says the outpouring of support since he revealed he was the victim of a verbal attack in Dublin at the weekend has been “the biggest reaction to anything” he has spoken about on radio.

The RTÉ presenter had been walking with his eldest daughter in Dún Laoghaire when two people in their 20s verbally assaulted him for his “beliefs” around Covid-19 and other issues.

Discussing the first incident on his radio show on Tuesday, Mr Tubridy said “a young guy of about 25 or 26” who passed him threw out a homophobic slur at the presenter, while shortly after another man in his early 20s started “roaring” at him, saying: “You’re the virus. You’re a paedophile virus”.

The response to Tubridy’s impromptu discussion has been strong and the presenter says he feared people would think he was seeking attention by speaking about the incidents.

“I hadn't written anything and hadn't prepared anything so I spoke off the cuff, that's why it was so passionate because it came from a very sincere part of my heart. I've never experienced anything quite like it before,’ he says.

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“I was concerned that people would think that I was looking for more attention. I just wanted to draw attention to that thing that's happening in our society among a tiny minority of, in this case, young men who seemed to be deeply unhappy and so much so that they would stop somebody in the street who's with his family and would roar homophobic slurs in their face and square up to them, nose to nose. I felt Irish society is better than that.” 

He says within just seven minutes, those men highlighted “the troubling side of where we are as a country” but says he has been “enriched” by the overall experience.

“The reaction to it has been bigger than pretty much anything I've done, possibly the biggest reaction to anything I've done on the radio. The reaction to it was from people who've been bullied, people who've been harassed, people who've been shouted out on the street, parents of young gay men and women, saying: ‘We get that all the time. We are called that name.’ 

Now I understand them more than I ever have before. To me, I am enriched by that, in a weird way. Those guys maybe even did me a favour because now I know what people go through and it's not nice.

“One of my colleagues said: ‘What happened to you, it happens to women pretty much every day of the week. Someone will shout something lewd, crude, unwelcome.’ This friend and colleague said they’ve had to put up with that, that's part of what it's like [as a public figure].” 

Tubridy says he wants to spread a message that “you can’t be a bully, you can’t be cruel. It's not fair. It’s not nice and that's not who we are.”