“Silly Joke”: BBC Anchor Apologizes and Shows Middle Finger During Live Broadcast | Watch

On social media on Wednesday, a video of a BBC news presenter giving the camera the finger at the beginning of a live broadcast went viral. Just before delivering the midday news, BBC anchor and chief presenter Maryam Moshiri flashed her finger.

With a silly grin on her face and her eyes wide open, Moshiri was seen as the BBC countdown for the noontime news got closer to zero. She altered her response, saying, “Live from London, this is BBC News,” as soon as she realized the camera was rolling.

The video went viral on social media right away. Some individuals questioned her professionalism, while others connected the video to job problems. After that, the anchor herself went to X, the former Twitter, to explain that she was only kidding about her colleagues and to apologize to anybody who was offended by the video.

“Hey everyone, yesterday I was having a little fun in the gallery with the crew just before the top of the hour. As the director counted me down from 10-0, I pretended to count down, extending my fingers to indicate the number. Hence, one finger was held up to ten. Moshiri commented on X, “I turned my finger around as a joke when we got to one and didn’t realize that this would be caught on camera.”

I apologize for the joke being public; it was a private one between the team and myself. I apologize to anybody I may have insulted or disturbed; this was not my aim. I wasn’t “flipping the bird” to the audience or anyone else for that matter. She went on, “It was just a dumb prank for a select group of my friends.