Angela Scanlon has revealed she lied her way into presenting The One Show.
The Irish broadcaster, 40, provided maternity cover for presenter Alex Jones on the BBC show in early 2017.
Before getting the job, she told a producer that she had previously worked on studio shows in Ireland.
“He said, ‘Have you ever done studio?’ and I said, ‘Yeah I’ve done loads of it in Ireland,’ which was a total lie,” she told the Big Fish podcast.
“Then I went off to do Robot Wars and I got a call to say, ‘They want you to fill in on The One Show.’ I was on a train practising how to read autocue and I had no idea what I was doing.”
Scanlon, who has now replaced Graham Norton as Virgin Radio’s weekend presenter, said she enjoyed her time on the show.
But she admitted that she felt “quite lonely” at the start of the job and pretended to be more experienced than she was.
She said: “I was too afraid to say guys, ‘I don’t know what open and switch means you’re going to have to literally break this down for me.’ I should have openly said, ‘These are my limitations, I’m going to need help: I think I can do it, I’m pretty sure I can, but I might need you to give me a hand.’
“Whereas I just shut up shop and had to pretend that I knew exactly what I was doing which was quite lonely.
“I had fooled myself into believing that if I reached these things that I’d be great, everything would be fantastic.”