Dragons’ Den star Steven Bartlett stands accused of spreading ‘dangerous’ misinformation on his latest Diary Of A CEO podcast.
Bartlett, 32, hosted Dr Roger Seheult, a ‘vitamin D expert’, who he described as a ‘world-leading doctor in internal medicine, lung health, critical care and sleep medicine’.
In the trailer for the podcast, already viewed 4.5 million times, Dr Seheult describes a patient who was ‘cured’, miraculously, ‘by sunlight’.
Dr Seheult said: ‘A 15-year-old boy was diagnosed with blood cancer but he developed a flesh-eating infection in his lung. He wasn’t going to make it. So he had one request – to go outside. That’s what they did. After the second day, the infection was 60-70 per cent gone. It became clear to me that sunlight has so many health benefits.’
He added: ‘For example, if you are closer to the window, you are discharged from hospital faster.’
Broadcaster and retired surgeon Dr Liz O’Riordan was alarmed by the claims in the trailer. ‘This is one of the current problems with podcasts – clips carefully edited to go viral with shocking statements.’
She added: ‘The clip implies that leaving ITU for sunlight can stop people dying – and yes, it is dangerous.
Steven Bartlett, Dragons’ Den star and podcast host of Diary Of A CEO
‘The medical information this doctor tells us is second-hand – from the boy’s mum, who is not a doctor – and we don’t know what made her tell him this. But as a guy pushing sunlight, there will have been some bias in this interview.’
(Coincidentally, a link on the podcast’s social media offered listeners the chance to buy a sunlight lamp.)
Dr O’Riordan, a breast cancer awareness campaigner diagnosed with the disease herself in 2015, said: ‘Steven doesn’t appear to challenge his guests or ask for the evidence.’
She noted the study Dr Seheult mentions, about patients by windows being discharged earlier, was only a small trial, decades ago, of people being treated for bipolar disorder.
Meanwhile, on TikTok, a video criticising the Dr Seheult episode of Diary Of A CEO (DOAC) has received more than 15,000 likes.
Last year, the BBC World Service broadcast an investigation into Bartlett’s podcast – the biggest in the UK, according to Spotify.
It flagged that, in one episode, claims by cardiologist Aseem Malhotra that the ‘Covid vaccine was a net negative for society’ went unchallenged, allowing misinformation to be spread. (In response to the BBC investigation Dr Malhotra said he accepted people disagreed with his views but ‘that does not mean that they have been debunked’.)
The Lancet medical journal estimates that Covid-19 vaccines saved up to 1.5 million lives.
The BBC highlighted other episodes, which aired claims that autism and schizophrenia could be caused by gluten, and that cancer can be ‘managed’ by food rather than ‘medieval’ chemotherapy.
A spokesperson for Bartlett’s production company, FlightStory Studio, said: ‘Each guest episode is thoroughly researched prior to commission. DOAC offers guests freedom of expression and believes that progress, growth and learning comes from hearing a range of voices, not just those Steven and the DOAC team agree with.’
Dr O’Riordan told me: ‘Podcasts like this are a big-money business. The more shocking you can make the story, the more clicks you get. Podcasts are not regulated, people can – and do – say anything they like.’
Bartlett said in 2024 he expected to make £20 million that year from his podcast.
Keeley Hawes says it’s a myth that she is always busy, despite many years of popping up on our TV screens in everything from Ashes To Ashes to The Durrells. ‘Usually I have a year where I am doing nothing – and then two shows that I’d filmed previously come along on screen at the same time,’ said the actress, who debuts in Prime Video’s thriller The Assassin today and was recently on TV in Miss Austen. ‘I’m like an actress version of buses!’
Adria steps in to ensure it’s not the end of the Affair…
The Thomas Crown Affair – telling the story of a millionaire who commits heists for the sheer hell of it, and falls for the insurance investigator who is on his tail – is so good they’ve made it three times.
First, of course, was the 1968 classic with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway (pictured below) – and soundtrack featuring The Windmills Of Your Mind.
Steve McQueen as Thomas Crown and Faye Dunaway as Vicki Anderson in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Then it was remade in 1999, with Pierce Brosnan alongside Rene Russo.
And now comes another reboot with actor, director and producer Michael B. Jordan, who is hot right now thanks to the success of the film Sinners.
His version, slated to come out in 2027, started filming in London a couple of weeks ago, but within days the leading lady Taylor Russell stepped away from the movie, with sources saying that there were ‘creative differences’ between her and Jordan.
Luckily, Adria Arjona has leapt into the breach. Arjona, who is stepping out with actor Jason Momoa, appears in the Disney Star Wars spinoff Andor, and also starred in Hit Man with Glenn Powell and Blink Twice with Channing Tatum.
Adria Arjona, US actress, who will star opposite Michael B Jordan in The Thomas Crown Affair
Big new role for Barbie star Margot
TIM Burton is set to direct Margot Robbie in a remake of the 1958 cult classic Attack Of The 50 ft Woman.
The trade papers report that Robbie is going to star in and produce the project, which has been in development at Warner Bros since early 2024.
In the movie, an heiress has a close encounter with an alien spacecraft, causing her to grow to the size of a skyscraper.
The original starred Allison Hayes, and there was a 1993 TV version which starred Darryl Hannah.
Meanwhile, Burton’s Wednesday – his series for Netflix about Wednesday Addams – has been commissioned for series 3. The second series comes out next month.
Margot Robbie at last year’s Vanity Fair Oscar Party. She is set to star in Burton’s new film
$6,000 a ticket, Macca? This had better be good
Sir Paul McCartney performs at his Got Back world tour in London last December
Fans may have been stunned by the price of tickets to see Taylor Swift during her Eras tour – but they ain’t seen nothing yet.
While some resales to see TayTay ran to $900, the price of seeing Sir Paul McCartney on the US leg of his Got Back tour has reached … $6,308 a head.
Tickets went on sale this week and were quickly snapped up, only to appear on resale sites like Viagogo, StubHub and Ticketmaster. Some tickets in Nashville and Pittsburgh are running at more than $6,000 each, with tickets elsewhere ranging between $200 and $1,600.
McCartney’s management team were not available for comment. But his former publicist Geoff Baker deplored the mess, saying on Facebook: ‘The drawback with allowing dynamic pricing at your gigs to raise the cost of a ticket to $1,600 is the huge pressure that you then put on yourself.
‘Because if people are paying that much many will expect … not only the best show that they have ever seen, but the best show that you have ever given.’
Stephen Mangan met his wife Louise Delamere on the set of a film called Offending Angels. Mangan, who presents The Fortune Hotel on ITV from August 6, said proudly: ‘It’s the lowest grossing film in British history and made £94 at the box office.’ The film, released in 2000, also starred Andrew Lincoln and Jack Davenport.
LA sources say that the plastic surgeon’s most requested standard of modern beauty is … Emily Ratajkowski, who plays a super-beautiful influencer in Lena Dunham’s hit Netflix comedy Too Much. Apparently everyone wants her cheekbones and jawline.
Another satisfied customer! I hear that Olympic diving champ-turned-TV fixture Tom Daley has left the agency YMU, following Claudia Winkleman, Amanda Holden, Emily Atack, Gabby Logan, Rob Rinder, Amelia Dimoldenberg and others out of the door.
Football’s NOT coming home!
Ted Lasso is back – but this time nearly all the filming will be done outside the UK.
The popular Apple TV+ show made a bit of a star of the London borough of Richmond, and also filmed around south London. But the latest series is being made mainly in … Kansas City, where star Jason Sudeikis grew up. (Though it’s still set in Richmond.)
The new episodes will see Lasso start coaching a women’s football team. Hannah Waddingham and Brett Goldstein are among the returning cast.
Jason Sudeikis in a still from Apple TV’s Ted Lasso – which is NOT being filmed in the UK
