John Cleese has spoken out after comments previously made about him by Miriam Margolyes resurfaced on social media.

In recent history, the Fawlty Towers star has repeatedly been slated by the always-candid Miriam, having first crossed paths with her when they were both still at university.

As far back as 2022, the Bafta winner named John as one of two people she’d never want to work with, having already accused him of behaving in a “vicious” way towards her in the past.

“That was a time when I was fully alive, when I fully became myself. But I lost my smile a little when I performed in the Footlights revue of 1962,” she wrote in her 2021 memoir This Much Is True.

“I didn’t like the Footlights boys and they really didn’t like me. They made that obvious. When I say ‘they’, I refer to a most distinguished group: John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Bill Oddie, Humphrey Barclay (later Head of Comedy at LWT), Tony Hendra and Tim Brooke-Taylor.”

“John Cleese, Bill Oddie and Graham Chapman were total shits — and they have never apologised,” she added, describing their behaviour towards her as “pointed and vicious”.

The two British performers have had something of a back-and-forth ever since, which Miriam was asked about on Romesh Ranganathan’s podcast back in May.

“It was a long time ago and I think it shows me in a very bad light that I bear so much rage and irritation when I recall it,” Miriam told the stand-up comic.

“But women weren’t allowed to join [Cambridge’s comedy society] Footlights in the days when I was [at university], and the very brilliant young men who were the Footlights were all so mean-spirited and jealous of anybody who took their light.”

She claimed: “They were immensely competitive with each other, and I had a real run-in with the boys in the Footlights revue that I was in.

“John Cleese and Graham Chapman were particularly venomous [towards me],” Miriam recalled. “The thing that they did that was the most hurtful was that they stopped speaking to me off-stage. It’s called ‘being sent to Coventry’. And that’s what they did. And it wounded me terribly, and I wasn’t invited to the cast party, so I complained, and I went, but I’ve never really forgiven them.

“I think John and Graham were really brilliant young men, but they lacked that thing which is the human part of the gene, and their comedy was soulless, ultimately.”

“And I’m glad he’s old and unfunny,” she added, to laughs from Romesh and the crew off-stage.

Miriam Margolyes recalls why she never forgave John Cleese and Graham Chapman“Women weren’t allowed to join Footlights in the days when I was there.”“They stopped speaking to me off stage, so that is called being sent to Coventry.”“It wounded me terribly. And I wasn’t… pic.twitter.com/Ol567zLbxw

Footage of this part of the interview was posted on X on Wednesday night, prompting a response from John himself the following morning.

Source: Read the original article on www.huffingtonpost.co.uk