Katherine Ryan has reignited her feud with the Beckham family, taking aim at David Beckham during a stand-up gig in Chelsea just weeks after issuing a public apology over a joke about his wife Victoria.
According to reports from the October 8 show, Ryan told the audience she had been cancelled by the BBC for allegedly calling Victoria Beckham a profane name, before pivoting to David's infamous leaked emails with a jab about his spelling. The audience reportedly responded with laughter. She insisted, however, that she held no ill will toward the fashion designer and added that she loved Victoria Beckham.
The controversy originated during an episode of Have I Got News for You that aired on November 7 last year. During a discussion of David Beckham's leaked emails, Ryan made a joke about Victoria that drew viewer complaints and triggered an internal BBC investigation. The emails, leaked in 2017, reportedly contained criticism of the honours committee over David's frustration at being denied a knighthood, though his representatives have claimed the messages were heavily doctored and that swear words were added to the private correspondence.
The BBC's Executive Complaints Unit later upheld a complaint about Ryan's joke, concluding that the comment lacked justification and unfairly compared Victoria to an offensive slur. The broadcaster subsequently replaced the episode on BBC iPlayer with an edited version. Ryan apologised publicly last month, explaining the circumstances around the remark and saying she had been going through matrescence, the transition into motherhood, while acknowledging the joke had caused offence.
The comic's latest remarks suggest she considers the apology chapter closed and is now folding the controversy into her material. It is a well-worn path for stand-up comedians, for whom clashes with broadcasters often become fodder, but it also risks reopening a dispute that had appeared settled.
The Beckhams have not publicly responded to the new jokes. Victoria Beckham's representatives were not immediately available for comment. The couple remain among Britain's most prominent public figures, with David having finally received a knighthood in the honours lists after years of speculation. Whether Ryan's latest routine provokes another round of complaints to the BBC remains to be seen, but her Chelsea audience, at least, seemed happy to laugh along. The episode underlines a recurring tension between comedians and the BBC's complaints machinery. The corporation's Executive Complaints Unit exists precisely to adjudicate viewer grievances about taste and fairness, and its rulings can force edits to programmes already broadcast on iPlayer. For Ryan, a comic whose brand has long thrived on provocative punchlines about celebrity culture, the Beckham joke has become both a professional setback and a rich seam of new material, and she appears in no hurry to retire it.