Ryan Tubridy has had a weird year, no doubt about it!
The former Late Late Show presenter appeared on the Laughs Of Your Life podcasts with his old RTÉ colleague Doireann Garrihy earlier this week.
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Guests on the podcast reflect on the highs and lows of their life, so it wasn’t surprising that Ryan talked about being the centre of the recent RTÉ scandal, opening up about what he referred to as ‘The Thing’ for the first time since it happened.
Speaking on what a great support his 82-year-old mother was during the time, he said: "She was in the hospital for a lot of it and that was one of the things I found quite difficult was when I was being thrashed by certain quarters – and the odd person – and I thought, ‘You know, I don’t mind you thrashing me but have you any idea the pain you might be causing people around me?'”
He described the day that he sat before the Oireachtas Committee as “Christmas morning flipped”.
“I heard people were watching in Ibiza from what I heard. Let’s not be too big about it, if I wasn’t me I’d be kind of going ‘The poor divil, the poor divil, I can’t believe…”. he said.
But he described a moment where he felt humbled by the situation.
While he was in a taxi on the way to the hearings, they passed St Michael’s College where people were leaving flowers for the two boys who tragically died on a Leaving Cert holiday in Greece.
"And I looked at those – and they were 18-year-old boys – and I thought to myself in the back of that car having kind of spent a few hours feeling sorry for myself."
“And I thought: ‘My life is interrupted – and those families’ lives are destroyed. Now you cop yourself on. You’re going in to the tell the story, you’re going in to tell them everything you know and then you’re going home. Think about that ‘. And that was a good pep talk.”
Reflecting on the situation as a whole, Tubridy can look back on it now and say that it was “arguably the best thing to ever happen to me”.
“I always wanted to go to London. I always wanted to investigate radio over there and TV but I never did it. I was thinking about it but I was procrastinating.” Ryan told Doireann.
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He added: “I was ‘maybe someday-ing’ my life away until I was mugged – and it was the best mugging a man could get.
“Because once the dark clouds dissipated – and they did, they’re still dissipating a little bit to be honest – but once they started to make way for decision making and purposeful planning, everything started to happen.”
Ryan Tubridy’s new show on Virgin Radio in the UK kicks off on January 2nd.
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