Richard Madeley admits recent tanning blunder was his 'most embarrassing TV moment ever'

Richard Madeley

It looks like Richard Madeley won’t be living down last week’s fake tan disaster on Good Morning Britain anytime soon.

The veteran TV host, who is currently filling in for Piers Morgan on the breakfast show, left viewers in stitches last week as he turned up to host looking quite a few shades more orange than normal.

Fans were left confused by his rather tanned face, commenting in their droves on social media wondering whether he'd simply got too much make-up on.

And on today's programme, he told co-host Susanna Reid that the fake tan fail - that had Twitter users branding him an ‘Oompa Loompa’ and comparing him to Donald Trump - was his “most embarrassing TV moment out of the last ten years”.

Explaining the blunder, Richard blamed his orange glow on his mistaking bodybuilding daughter Chloe’s fake tan for face cream, during a last minute dash to leave the house.

“I thought I was putting aftershave balm on at quarter to four in the morning,” he lamented to Susanna. "It wasn’t – it was fake tan. I think it might have been my daughter’s, I don’t know.”

“Thank you so much for raising it,” he quipped to Susanna, who consoled the host with tales of her own on air fake tan fails.

But quick to reassure him, she joked, “I’m normally known as Ronseal Reid because of my fake tan, and I’m not pretending that it’s haemorrhoid cream or aftershave balm – mine’s definitely fake tan!”

“Oh don’t go there!” an embarrassed Richard then said to Susanna of the blunder, which saw guest Mark-Francis Vandelli, star of Made in Chelsea, peering at the presenter closely and exclaiming, “Were you in Barbados or Mystique? You've got a fantastic colour.”

Richard continued, revealing that viewers have actually shared their own similar tales with him since the incident.

He said, “Somebody wrote to me and said that he actually did something similar, but he put haemorrhoid cream on his face just after dawn.

“I thought it was aftershave balm, we all know it wasn’t – and can we ever drop it?” he pleaded to Susanna.

Kate McCusker


Kate is a freelance contributor to woman&home, covering everything she loves most: fashion, fiction, and fancy face cream. If she’s not working, she’s probably reading, feeding her online shopping addiction, or judging the taste level of celebrity houses (10/10 for Dakota Johnson, 2/10 for Tan France).


She graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2020 with a BA in fashion journalism, and her byline has also appeared in British VogueThe Times, and Marie Claire.