Joe Lycett says he "planned the whole thing" after 'storming off' Steph's Packed Lunch
The comedian staged the chat show walk-out to raise awareness of environmental issues.
Comedian Joe Lycett has said that an incident in which he 'stormed off' Steph's Packed Lunch was staged.
Lycett appeared on the chat show yesterday (1st July) when he also revealed he'd stopped using single-use plastic in his home.
A picture of Lycett's garden was later shown during the programme with presenter Steph McGovern pointing out a plastic bottle present in the snap, with Lycett then seen on camera walking off the show and removing his microphone.
However, the comedian revealed in a social media post this morning that he "planned the whole thing" in order to raise awareness of the impact of white PET plastic on the environment.
In a statement posted to Twitter, Lycett said "all of it was planned, all of it was rehearsed" and that he seeded further pictures of himself using a plastic bottle in order to get "all over the press".
He said: "I risked my reputation as a jolly, affable and very-much-available chat show guest to say this as loud as I can: Yop, it's time to stop using white PET plastic."
Lycett then appeared on today's edition of Steph's Packed Lunch to explain the publicity stunt, when it was revealed that McGovern was in on the plan but that most of her production team were not aware.
"I decided that I wanted as many people to know about [white PET plastic] as possible," Lycett told McGovern. "And how do you get press inches? Well we've seen Piers Morgan, we've seen Patsy Palmer - you storm off a chat show."
Lycett added that he felt the stunt was a huge success.
"We were hoping for a couple of headlines," Lycett said. "I'm describing what we got as a clean sweep, we've had all of the tabloids."
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This is not the first time Lycett has pulled a publicity stunt to raise awareness of a cause, with the comedian famously changing his name to Hugo Boss to protest the fashion brand's legal action against small businesses.
The issue featured on the second series of his consumer show Joe Lycett's Got Your Back, with the comedian reverting back to his original name in April 2020.
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