‘Because they’ve talked about my stature I’ve felt ashamed’: Richard Osman, 51, reveals he now tells people to ‘stop body shaming’ him when they make comments about his 6’7” height

Richard Osman has revealed that he now tells people to stop ‘body shaming’ him when they make comments about his height. 

The Pointless star, 51, who stands at 6ft 7in tall, admitted this week that comments about his height have plagued him all his life and affected him so much, he stopped going out. 

Speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast, he said he’s grateful for the ‘body shaming’ term as he’s suffered from it all his life. 

‘Because they’ve talked about my stature I’ve felt ashamed’: Richard Osman, 51, revealed this week that he now tells people to ‘stop body shaming’ him when they make comments about his 6’7” height

‘Because they’ve talked about my stature and I’ve felt ashamed. That’s body shaming. I would never have thought of it as that,’ he said.   

‘I’m 6ft 7, which is too much is the truth. My height is something that people can always see. Recently people have started saying, ”Oh, you mustn’t body shame,” he said. 

‘And I thought, ”Well that’s interesting”. Because body shaming is sort of something that certain people would say, ”What a snowflake, talking about body shaming”. But actually I think, ”yeah, that’s what you’re doing, that’s what people have done to me for the last 30 years – they’ve body shamed me”. 

Candid: The Pointless star, 51, who stands at 6ft 7in tall, admitted this week that comments about his height have plagued him all his life and affected him so much, he stopped going out

He said he felt ’embarrassed’ about his height and ‘didn’t want to go out’ due to some of the comments. 

The bestselling author and TV producer said he constantly suffers comments about blocking the audience’s view at cinemas and gigs – which most people think is just being funny – but in reality he makes an effort to be at the back even though his extremely poor eyesight stops him seeing much.

He said his self-consciousness about his height has taught him about micro-aggressions and led him to fight for people who are different in any way, such as in their race or sexual orientation.

Speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast, he said he’s grateful for the ‘body shaming’ term as he’s suffered from it all his life

‘I’m not being discriminated against because of my height. But I do know that every single day of my life I’m reminded of it,’ he said. 

‘Every single day just non-stop, and so I know that to be a person of colour, to be differently gendered, to be all of these things, I know that the micro-aggressions I get, you’re getting non-stop every day of your life, and in a much more harmful way.’

Speaking about the height comments he receives, he says sometimes he gets mixed reactions. 

‘Most people are perfectly nice. Some people are horrible,’ he said. 

‘I call it a c-word radar – this being seen different in any way. So many people are lovely and chat, but then a couple of times a day there’s someone who wants to shout at you out of a window, or just wants to make you feel small ironically. And you just think why?’

‘What, someone’s a bit different to you and you’ve got to shout something and make yourself feel a bit better?’

‘So being different in any way whatsoever I think really teaches you about people and about the hate that’s out there and about the unhappiness that’s out there, because that’s where it all comes from.’

Mixed reactions: Speaking about the height comments he receives, he says sometimes he gets mixed reactions. ‘Most people are perfectly nice. Some people are horrible,’ he said

Richard, who has extremely poor vision because of an eye condition called nystagmus, said sometimes he receives comments about his height on Twitter.

‘Sometimes I’ll sort of tweet something about, ”Oh, I love this film” or ”I went to see this gig”, and ten people will go, ”Oh, glad I wasn’t behind you”.

‘It’s a perfectly harmless joke. I understand why people do it. But I get it every single time. Think for one second, ”Has this guy ever heard this before? Is it a fun thing to say to him?”

‘Because for to me if I go to a gig or the cinema it’s a nightmare because I don’t want to be in front of anyone. I go out of my way to be as far back as possible, which when you can’t see it’s impossible. Or you’re going to sit in the aisle in the cinema.’

Richard said he was tall from a very young age, and was 6ft 2 at the age of 17. 

‘At sort of 17, 18 and when I went off to university, I’m sort of this guy who is much too tall and is awkward about being tall, who can’t see anything, and who’s quite an introvert anyway, and sort of had this false self anyway from when he was nine years old and his dad left,’ he said. 

He added that he ‘didn’t live the life he should have’ due to being insecure about his height. 

‘It meant that I didn’t live the life I should have done for many years because I was sort of hiding away from things,’ he said. 

He said he always thought that because of his height he would ‘look stupid on a rollercoaster’ and worried if his legs didn’t fit in things. 

‘The world is not shy in letting you know that you’re weird. And I felt weird. Your behaviour changes,’ he said. 

Struggles: He said he always thought that because of his height he would ‘look stupid on a rollercoaster’ and worried if his legs didn’t fit in things

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