As he steps down as host of The Late Late Show after 14 years, Ryan Tubridy tells Donal O'Donoghue his story: why he is leaving, the importance of family, living with the bouquets and the brickbats, and what he plans to do next.
"I think it was a big grown-up decision to make and I don’t think I’ve always been a great grown-up," says Ryan Tubridy of the factors that impelled him to pull the plug as host of The Late Late Show in March.
The broadcaster says that the reasons were several (that ticking clock of his imminent 50th birthday was one) but being in the crosshairs of the spotlight was a decisive one.
"My life was lived in the glare of the limelight for 20 years so yes, that was one of the reasons," he says. "I wanted to turn that light down. I just think I had my fill of being public property at that level. Now I’ve always accepted that fame thing was part and parcel of the job, but then you hit an age and think: 'That was lovely, but I don’t want to play that game anymore.’ Last summer, the seeds were sown in my head, but it got short-circuited in the last few months. So, no one thing, but a tapestry of events that helped to lead me to where I am today."
Today is a Monday morning in RTÉ, a couple of months after the bombshell that few, not least RTÉ management, saw coming. Tubridy, leather satchel in hand, has just wrapped his radio show, and is good to go. "Let’s do it," he says as we head to a room that was once a waiting-room for Late Late Show guests.
Three minutes in and the lights go off. Ryan laughs. "I just hope that’s not an omen for the next person who takes over," he says. We continue chatting in the darkened space, almost like a confessional: Ryan, sometimes with arms across his chest, sometimes more expansive, talks of the why, the wherefore, and the what-next.
With just three Late Late Shows left on his slate, I imagine he already has his eye on the exit (the week before, he went for dinner with the team, "my band of brothers and sisters") and the talk was not of retiring but rewiring.
And yet, after 14 years at the helm, surely there will be some adjustment? "I think it will be a difficult transition, strange too. I’ve spoken with athletes who have hung up their jerseys and I’m thinking that’s also now me in terms of the psychological and emotional transition from Mister Friday Night to ‘Who is that guy?’ That will be interesting."
So how will he live with being ‘who is that guy?’ "In peace! (he laughs) I’m hoping that my ego has been sated in terms of the attention that you get from the show. That’s a big thing, to be frank with you. That buzz you get from an audience, and of being known and all that. I hope that I don’t miss that because, at this age, that feels pleasant as well as terribly superficial. But I think it is time to concentrate on the love of people closer to me than the attention of those I don’t know."
As significant as the impact on himself, was the effect on his family (Tubridy has two daughters, Ella and Julia, with his ex-wife, Anne-Marie Power). "My family have made sacrifices for this job, and I'll never be able to thank them enough for that. They are my be-all and end-all and it has always been family first and career second. I'm looking forward to hanging out with my daughters, who were girls when I first started this show and are now women. They are extraordinary young women and will kill me for talking about them so I will stop now."
His mother, Catherine ("my most ardent fan"), is possibly relieved with his decision: "My mother said, after I got the job, that every show for her was like watching a boxer going into a ring because afterward, she’d buy the newspaper and go ‘What is this?’ I’d say to her, ‘Don’t be buying that’ and that ‘I’ll know when it’s time to hang up my gloves’. And here we are."
Later in his life, Gay Byrne, who was at the helm of the flagship RTÉ chat show for 37 years, expressed regret about sacrificing family time at the altar of the workplace. Ryan Tubridy was never going to be that soldier.
"I was never going to let this great organisation dictate necessarily where my priorities would lie in that regard," he says. "I was never going to overstay my welcome and I was always going to have that time to endeavour to be a good dad, as Gay was, because he too loved his girls. But it was a different time with different pressures and demands."
Did RTÉ try to change his mind about stepping back from The Late Late? "There was no bartering to be done as they were told what was happening by me and that it was non-negotiable. I was leaving the show and there was a full stop after that. They were very good about that and took it on board. I know my mind and they knew that. It was very amicable: shake hands and good night."
Then there’s the Toy Show: nobody did it better than Tubridy, a natural who belied that old showbiz mantra that you should never work with kids and toys with lots of fiddly bits that can and will go wrong. "I didn’t have to pretend that I was having fun," he says of having the craic with the kids.
"I always wanted to be a dad, even way back in my teenage years. It's the most beautiful thing in the world. I don’t know what it is about kids or childhood, but we get on great. I suppose it is the big kid in me that is ever present, but then you’re only as good as the kids on the show, as well as the team behind the scenes. I was sent via Instagram videos of kids across Ireland crying when their folks told them that the Toy Man was heading off. But no, there was no talk of getting me to still host it. I’m out. Whoever follows me, that should be part of their deal and maybe it scared off some potential hosts."
But who will follow Ryan Tubridy into the most high-profile job in Irish television? "It’s a papal conclave and I’m not a cardinal," he says. "I have zero say and that’s right; if you’re gone, you’re gone. If the bosses want to re-imagine the show in the likeness of someone else, I shouldn’t have a say. But I will have an interest and I’m hoping they pick the right person. I was the keeper of the flame but that’s coming to an end."
Is it now a poisoned chalice? "Maybe someone people are asking ‘Do I need that in my life?’ You become extraordinarily well-known and will be stopped all the time – shopping, in the pub, going for a coffee –because everyone has an opinion on what you say, what you look like and how you conduct yourself in the job. And online too."
What about Patrick Kielty, the short odds favourite, who hasn’t ruled himself out? "It could be him and I have to say he’s a lovely fellow and well able for the gig."
What does he think will be his Late Late Show legacy? "I think that’s a horrible question," he says and laughs. "My legacy is for others to write or say and because not everyone loves what I do, I’m not expecting the most glorious write-ups in the broadsheets."
Do negative reviews have an impact on him? "I tend not to read the mean stuff and I listen to the good people I meet on the street and those who watch the show week in and week out because they are more important to me. Now I know the media are just doing a job, and they have done a job on me for long enough (he laughs). To paraphrase an awful creature ‘They won’t have Nixon to kick around any more, and it will be somebody else’s turn.’"
How much does he think he has changed in those 14 years? "I’m not sure who I’m quoting, perhaps Aristotle or someone pretentious like that, but I'll go to the grave learning, professionally and personally."
The show goes on. Or should it? "It should and to be bald about it, I’m sure the financial people in RTÉ will say it has to go on because of the revenue it generates," he says. "I believe that I’ve done as much as I can with the show. I also believe that the show is ready for change. It’s a show that always needs to re-invent itself and I have said for a few years that it should be shorter in length and also have a shorter season. The run of 37 or 38 consecutive Fridays of two hours of live TV with four or five parts is too much. They might change that eventually, but it didn’t happen on my watch. I believe that would have been wise to do some time ago and post-Covid would have been the perfect opportunity. But part of the situation of the longer show is that it is so lucrative for the station, so why would they turn away revenue? But there should be a discussion about commerce versus content."
As for Ryan Tubridy, the big grown-up who is planning an epic rail journey to celebrate his 50th, "the best is yet to come."
He talks about the possibilities of podcasts and documentaries (he might be following in the tracks of Palin and Portillo – he has an idea) and so on, tapping into his love of trains, books, politics and history. What about BBC Radio 2, where he spent a few summers subbing for Graham Norton?
"Can I quote Star Trek? Well, ‘all hailing frequencies are open!’" Just because he’s leaving the Big One, doesn’t mean his broadcasting obituary is about to be inked, with his flagship radio show reflecting his passion for that medium.
"There's a little newsagent up the road from where I live where I go to buy the paper," he says in parting, "and that time last March there was a man there buying his newspaper and he said, ‘Why are they saying that you are retiring? Do you know what I did? I didn't retire, I rewired.’ I think I'll take that. I'm rewiring and not retiring."
