Louis Theroux admits he was searching for feedback online (Credits: BBC/Mindhouse)
Louis Theroux has admitted he was affected after his recent interview with Bear Grylls was labelled as ‘hella boring’ by an audience member on social media.
In his latest interview series, Louis Theroux Interviews…, the presenter sat down with famous faces including Stormzy, Dame Judi Dench, Yungblud and Katherine Ryan.
Across the episodes, he’s had his subjects speak about topics like mental health issues, grief, and toxic relationships.
But, it was a recent episode where he spoke to adventurer Bear that Louis got caught up in wanting to know what people watching at home thought.
‘When it went out and for whatever reason, I thought it was a good show and it would get a good reception, so I thought I would go on Twitter and see what people were saying and it was surprisingly quiet,’ he said on The Diary of a CEO podcast.
‘I thought I would try things like @louistheroux, @beargrylls and #LouisTherouxInterviews.
Louis has chatted to famous faces like Stormzy for this series (Picture: BBC)
‘All of a sudden I got a vision of myself and thought I had become that grubby guy who was kind of sad and fishing for approval in the vast swamp of the Twitterverse, casting my line and nothing much was coming back.’
After a search for any sort of comment, he came across one that left him wanting.
‘Then there was one that said, “Just watched Louis Theroux’s interview with Bear Grylls, wow, it was hella boring”,’ Louis recalled.
Social media fans weren’t loving the interview with Bear (Picture: Ben Simms/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
‘I thought I might have caught a boot and I did and that’s what I got.’
Despite decades of experience on screen and plenty of time dealing with people who might be offside, he admits it still got to him.
‘I think I have a relatively healthy level of self-esteem, but nevertheless.’
However, after a positive review, he said he then felt ‘really good’ again, but didn’t like how he felt he needed the feedback.
‘Before that I hadn’t checked Twitter after the first three episodes. I’m not that guy anymore,’ he continued.
He also sat down with Dame Judi Dench (Picture: BBC/Mindhouse)
‘I make shows and they are good and the ones that aren’t so good I know but these are all solid, but then I regressed into being the needy insecure person.
‘That guy is always there by the way, which is fine, but I have an urge to do good work and it is nice for that to be recognised and as much as I would like to pretend that I don’t care if people like it or not I do care actually.’
Two decades after he interrogated some the UK’s most peculiar public celebrities for one-off specials in Louis Meets which essentially made him a household name, Louis revisited that concept for this series.
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Speaking to Metro.co.uk ahead of its premiere he touched on his feelings about receiving criticism.
‘It would be insane to expect that you don’t get any criticism, I see stuff on Twitter, from time to time, it’s critical. People write reviews and sometimes the reviews are bad and that’s life,’ he said.
Louis Theroux Interviews… is streaming on BBC iPlayer.
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Louis is back interviewing famous faces in his new series.
