Joe Lycett has claimed he’ll no longer be going ahead with the launch of his new podcast after a stunt involving an inflatable toilet went awry earlier this week.
Friday should have been the debut of Joe’s new interview series Turdcast, in which he and a different celebrity guest (including inaugural interviewee Gary Lineker) were set to discuss their “most satisfying, horrifying and frankly awful toilet stories”.
To promote his new venture, the comedian and activist had planned to unveil a “giant, inflatable portable toilet” in Liverpool Docks, inviting members of the public to “spend a penny/drop a plop” (his words, not ours) before being interviewed about the experience for the podcast.
Unfortunately, things seemed to got off to a bit of a messy start when a “mechanical fault occurred”, leading to a “small spillage” and the eventual cancellation of the event.
“This was immediately dealt with by the support team on hand to ensure there was no impact on the water into which the spillage occurred,” a spokesperson insisted.
On Friday morning, Joe wrote on X: “Following the incident yesterday at Liverpool Albert Docks and an ongoing investigation into the sewage spilled into the waters, it has been concluded that it would be inappropriate to launch the podcast today, and we’ve therefore made the decision to cancel the podcast indefinitely.
“I’m very sorry to disappoint and hope that we can launch soon. I’d like to reiterate that it was entirely safe and managed by the team very swiftly. I’ll be releasing more information in due course.”
It’s perhaps worth pointing out, though, that in the past when Joe has been involved in similar situations to this one, they’ve turned out to be stunts in order to raise awareness of different causes.
Back in 2021, Joe appeared to storm off the set of Steph’s Packed Lunch following a “tense” exchange about his plastic use, which turned out to be a staged moment in order to highlight that white PET plastic bottles are not recyclable.
Last year, he also made headlines when he delivered an ultimatum to David Beckham, urging him to cancel his planned ambassadorship role with Qatar during the 2022 World Cup, and threatening to shred £10,000 in cash if he didn’t.
When Becks didn’t respond, Joe went ahead and shredded the money – though this, too, turned out to be staged, and he’d actually donated the amount in question to LGBTQ+ organisations.
Many fans have already grown suspicious about the Turdcast saga, and begun questioning whether Joe might have something else up his sleeve…