This Morning slammed by epilepsy charity as fans call for Cat Deeley to apologise for ‘offensive’ comments
THIS Morning fans have called for Cat Deeley to apologise after an offensive comment on yesterday’s show.
Alongside Ben Shephard, Cat returned to the ITV daytime show for another round-up of recent events and topical interviews.
Among the guests was US pop star Meghan Trainor, and as a recurring joke the show played clips from her hits including All About That Bass, Mother, and her new single Oops.
After returning from an ad break, Cat was seen dancing and shimmying to All About That Bass, prompting Ben to laugh at her.
She then declared: “Nothing to see here. Yeah, I’m fine, just having a seizure.”
The flippant remark upset viewers who either suffer from seizures themselves, or have loved ones who have them.
Now, The Epilepsy Society has spoken out also discrediting the moment.
They wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “Seizures are no laughing matter for people with #epilepsy @catdeeley.
“Please do better and educated yourselves about this difficult and poorly understood condition, @thismorning.”
The fresh blow to the show comes after it was revealed ITV’s mid-morning show’s viewing figures had almost halved in two months.
Just over a million saw new hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard’s first day in mid-March.
But by the same point in May the peak fell to 589,000 – with an average of 486,000 tuning in to the ITV show.
In comparison, BBC1 rival Morning Live had solid figures between one million to 1.4million.
A TV insider said: “Nobody at This Morning thought viewing figures would dip beneath the landmark low of half a million.
“The arrival of Ben and Cat was supposed to spark a resurgence and hopefully keep the ratings above the million mark.
“But within a couple of weeks it became apparent they hadn’t done the trick while their nemesis Morning Live stayed strong.
“Now there is a massive question mark lingering over the future of the show as it’s difficult to justify the huge costs of making a live, daily show, especially at a time when ad revenues for linear TV are so low.”
This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV.