BBC presenter issues apology and explains why she unexpectedly gave the finger live on air
A BBC presenter who was caught on camera giving the middle finger has issued an apology and explained why she was doing it.
In what has quickly become an iconic moment and will surely join the plethora of GIFs and memes that swirl around the internet, Maryam Moshiri flipped the bird at the camera right before presenting the news, or so it seemed.
Watch below:
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In the moments right before the BBC transitioned to a news bulletin the camera was on Moshiri but her moment of delivering the news had not yet begun.
Immediately after being caught on camera showing her middle finger she assumed the visage of a professional newsreader and began running through the headlines as though she hadn't just been flipping the bird seconds ago.
It was quite the surprise for many viewers, who were pretty stunned to see a presenter flipping them off even if she had no idea she was on camera at the time.
Moshiri has since posted about the incident to apologise and provide a bit more detail behind what was going on behind the scenes.
Taking to X, she wrote: "Hey everyone, yesterday just before the top of the hour I was joking around a bit with the team in the gallery.
"I was pretending to count down as the director was counting me down from 10-0.. including the fingers to show the number. So from 10 fingers held up to one.
"When we got to 1 I turned finger around as a joke and did not realise that this would be caught on camera.
"It was a private joke with the team and I’m so sorry it went out on air! It was not my intention for this to happen and I’m sorry if I offended or upset anyone. I wasn’t ‘flipping the bird’ at viewers or even a person really.
"It was a silly joke that was meant for a small number of my mates."
So there you go, just a bit of behind the scenes tomfoolery between colleagues in the seconds before they were due to go on air.
Maryam is probably feeling a bit daft that it ended up being broadcast live and will likely become a meme, but there appears to have been no harm or malice in it.
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She's certainly not the first newsreader to be caught out thinking they weren't live on air and being broadcast to the nation.
There have been plenty of presenters who thought they weren't going out live just that very moment being caught in a bit of downtime.
Surely in this case it's really no harm done?
Joe Harker