Presenter says her boss asked her: ‘What does your boyfriend do?’ when she sought a rise

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The TV presenter Fiona Bruce has said a BBC boss once suggested she did not need a pay rise because she could rely on her boyfriend.

Bruce, who took over from David Dimbleby as Question Time host, also said the corporation, at which she has spent 30 years, was previously “not a nice place to be”.

She told British Vogue she asked for a “desultory” pay rise during her early years at the broadcaster.

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“My boss said, ‘Do you really need it? What does your boyfriend do? You live with him, don’t you? Doesn’t he pay for most things?’” Bruce said.

She said she responded: “‘Well, I do the supermarket shopping, so I need to pay for that.’” Bruce added: “How ludicrous is that?”

The presenter did not go into detail about where the pay discussion took place or who made the comment.

Bruce also remarked on how the BBC had changed over the years. “If the six o’clock [news] had a story they didn’t want the one o’clock [news] to know about, they wouldn’t put it in the running order,” she told the magazine. “It was a terrible atmosphere – dog-eat-dog, bitchy, not a nice place to be.”

Bruce took over from Dimbleby in January as the host of Question Time. The presenter and newsreader was initially an outside bet to host the show, but she impressed in behind-closed-doors auditions.

She joined the BBC in 1989 as a researcher on Panorama. Over the course of 14 years, Bruce rose to become the first female newsreader on the BBC’s flagship News at Ten.

She has also presented some of the BBC’s best-loved light entertainment programmes, such as Antiques Roadshow and Fake or Fortune? and has become one of the corporation’s best-paid stars, earning more than £350,000 a year.

On getting the Question Time role, Bruce said it was an honour to be given the job, “particularly at a time of such historic change for the UK and tumult at Westminster”.