RTE star Jacqui Hurley feared she'd be 'laughing stock' after major mishap

Irish Daily Mirror

11-05-2025

Jacqui Hurley feared she would become a laughing stock after accidentally swearing on air during her early days at RTÉ.
The Cork presenter was overjoyed to be the first woman to host Sunday Sport on Radio 1 at the age of just 25.
However, a slip-up in a pre-record didn't go unnoticed by listeners and gained national attention, much to Jacqui's disappointment at the time.
Jacqui remembered: "I said 's**t' on the radio once. I started Sunday Sport in 2009 and I was the first ever woman to present the show.
"I was actually more worried at the time that I was the youngest ever presenter, because I was only 25 and I'd gone from reading four-minute sports bulletins to presenting a four-hour live radio programme with no scripts. I hadn't a clue what I was doing.", reports RSVP Live.
In the weeks leading up to her first show, Jacqui was pre-recording the opener, She introduced herself and said "S**t, let me do that again".
Unfortunately, that comment made the edit that went on air, and Jacqui had to apologise to listeners.
"We got an email from a guy saying he was in the car with young children and that he was horrified," the Sunday Game presenter told the Irish Independent.
"I remember at the time thinking, 'Oh Jesus, they'll never put another woman on the radio,' because this is going to be a gender thing. They are going to be like, 'Those women, they can't keep their mouths closed.'".
"There was definitely a fear around that. I genuinely thought, 'I could be in bother here,' at the time.
"Ana Leddy, who was the head of Radio 1 at the time, requested a meeting with me, and I fully thought, 'Oh, my God, she could be giving me the bullet here.'".
"I went in and she asked me what I learned. 'You know, your microphone is always on. You have to treat it as live, even if it was pre-recorded.'".
Jacqui wasn't pleased that the incident seemed to follow her around afterwards, and was worried she would become the "laughing stock" of RTÉ.
She added: "Will Leahy played it on the radio, and I was really annoyed at the time, and thought, 'You shouldn't be hanging your colleague out to dry,' even though people thought it was funny.
"Then I went on The Late Late Show maybe a week or two afterwards, because they were trying to do something about women making the breakthrough in sports journalism.
"It was me, Evanne [Ní Chuilinn] and Joanne [Cantwell], and they played it again. I was thinking, 'I'm going to become a laughing stock around here.'".
But luckily for Jacqui, this didn't happen:
"You'd swear I was cursing on the radio all the time. It never happened again, and that was in 2009."