Former Blue Peter Presenter Yvette Fielding Recounts Feeling ‘Bullied’ on the Show: ‘I was a Shaking, Gibbering Wreck

 

Yvette Fielding, the renowned TV presenter who gained fame as the youngest-ever host of Blue Peter, has disclosed that she experienced bullying during her tenure on the children’s TV show. Fielding, who was just 18 when she first appeared on the BBC series, asserts that the treatment she endured was so severe that if a young presenter were subjected to similar treatment today, it would lead to significant repercussions.

“I felt very isolated because I was the youngest. I was seen as a kid – and a troublesome one at that,” Fielding shared on the podcast Celebrity Catch-Up: Life After That Thing I Did. “So, I didn’t enjoy the first year. I found it very distressing.”

Fielding alleges that she was told to leave her parents’ home and was subsequently sent to Russia for six weeks, despite having ventured abroad only twice before. At one point, producers even insisted that she live with Bonnie, the Blue Peter dog, against her wishes. She became so unhappy that she eventually walked away.

“It got to the point where I’d just had enough. Being made to live with the dog, I had no say in it: ‘You will move out of your flat and you will move into this house with the dog’,” Fielding recounted.

“Given this dog to look after at 18, and not just any dog – the most famous dog in the country. Poor Bonnie was pining for her owner, scratching at the door every night. It was too heartbreaking. Imagine how many hearts would have been shattered if anything had happened to her. It would have been a national tragedy!”

According to Fielding, she received no training from the show, despite being an actor rather than a presenter, and was “essentially left to fend for myself”. She asserts that her mistreatment originated from her superior, Biddy Baxter.

“I wanted her to be so proud of me, yet it felt like being emotionally beaten by a parent. Every time I thought I was doing the right thing, she’d come back and say something awful, or humiliate me in front of others. It was utterly soul-crushing,” the presenter commented.

“You have to exude confidence in front of 8 million viewers twice a week, but my confidence was at its lowest. I was a trembling, nervous wreck.”

Fielding maintains that once Baxter departed the series, her experience on the show underwent a fundamental transformation, and she went on to thoroughly enjoy her remaining four years on the programme. Despite her unhappiness at the time, she harbours no ill will.

“The number of unpleasant people in the television industry… I always thank Biddy because I think, if it wasn’t for her, there’s no way I would’ve stood up, told them where to go and got on with it,” Fielding remarked. “She did that. She gave me the courage to do that. And I thank her for that. There’s no bitterness there whatsoever.

“But when people say to me, ‘Oh wasn’t it wonderful? Didn’t you have a fabulous time?’ I think, no, not the first year. It was dreadful. It was like a nightmare!”