Roxanne Pallett’s Celebrity Big Brother ‘punch’ revealed as most complained-about TV moment of the decade

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Roxanne Pallett’s inaccurate claim that she had been punched by a fellow Celebrity Big Brother contestant has been named the most complained-about TV moment of the decade.

The 2018 incident, in which the former Emmerdale actor claimed that Coronation Street star Ryan Thomas had hit her in the arm, received 25,327 complaints to television regulators at Ofcom, more than any other TV controversy in the last 10 years.

The scenes also accounted for half of all broadcasting complaints in 2018.

Pallett claimed that Thomas had “repeatedly, intentionally and aggressively” hit her during a play fight, and told Big Brother that she felt unsafe around him.

Confronted with video evidence of the alleged encounter, Pallett later admitted she “got it wrong”.

“I massively apologise to not only Ryan, but his friends, his family, his fans, every single person who watched that and who justifiably saw an overreaction to what wasn’t a malicious act,” she said. “Because I am sensitive, I mistook what was playful.”

“There was no malicious intention behind that, and that is what I apologise for because I shouldn’t have questioned his motivation. I got it wrong.”

The second most complained-about moment of the decade was a live confrontation between Coleen Nolan and Kim Woodburn in a 2018 episode of Loose Women. That received more than 8,000 complaints.

Other incidents to appear in Ofcom’s most complained-about list included provocative performances from Rihanna and Christina Aguilera in a 2010 episode of The X Factor, which garnered almost 3,000 complaints.

The most controversial TV moment of 2019, which earned 2,717 complaints, was revealed to be Jon Snow’s claim in a March episode of Channel 4 News that he had “never seen so many white people in one place,” when speaking of a pro-Brexit rally.