Steven Bartlett is going through growing criticism, with many complaining that the tone of his common podcast, The Diary of a CEO, has shifted from considerate self-improvement to one thing a lot darker.
And now even his fellow celebrities look like turning on him, together with Oti Mabuse, Vicky Pattison, Ulrika Jonsson and Greg James, who’ve all responded approvingly to a viral TikTok criticizing Bartlett.
Since 2017, the 33-year-old entrepreneur and Dragon’s Den star has constructed a big viewers by positioning herself as a peaceful, considerate interviewer, who explores matters comparable to burnout, anxiousness and success in enterprise and private life with a mild, therapeutic model.
For years, that method has allowed the podcast to face out from the louder, extra aggressive voices within the male self-help world.
However latest occasions have sparked accusations that Bartlett is pushing misogynistic concepts with out ample problem, with critics warning that their presentation as measured and non-controversial makes them significantly treacherous.
The newest backlash was sparked by an end-of-year episode with way of life podcaster Chris Williamson, by which the pair mentioned falling beginning charges.
In the course of the dialog, girls’s independence, entry to contraception and altering social expectations have been recommended as potential explanations for why fewer individuals are having youngsters.
Williamson went additional to counsel that “anti-family” attitudes amongst girls have been responsible, naming a TikTok creator who listed the reason why she does not need youngsters and seemingly mocked her resolution to not change into a mom.
The alternate rapidly unfold on social media, the place many listeners — and now a rising record of celebrities — accused the podcast of denigrating girls’s reproductive selections and decreasing complicated social points to cultural grievances about feminism.
On-line creator Shabaz Ali has emerged as one of many extra distinguished voices guiding the course of the podcast.
In a extensively shared video, he argues that The Diary of a CEO now affords “manosphere concepts a hoop mild and a hug,” warning that the measured tone makes damaging tales appear cheap relatively than excessive.
“This podcast was about mindset, trauma and development,” Shabaz mentioned. ‘Now it appears like girls are being blamed for males’s issues.’
The controversy goes past one episode. A resurfaced excerpt from an earlier interview with psychiatrist Alok Kanojia has additionally fueled anger, after Bartlett requested whether or not society ought to “arrange programs” to make sure lonely males or self-proclaimed incels can discover companions.
Critics say the dialogue handled girls as an summary answer to male dissatisfaction, whereas not recognizing consent or autonomy.
Shabaz continued, addressing the controversy in his video, saying, “Because of this lots of people name him a Trojan Horse, proper, as a result of it is not the identical as Andrew Tate standing there yelling and screaming.” This has a therapeutic ambiance.”
His criticism obtained sturdy help from distinguished figures, lots of whom mentioned they have been former followers of the podcast.
Dancer and tv persona Oti Mabuse commented that Bartlett was “so disappointing,” including that she had as soon as cherished the present.
Actuality star Vicky Pattison praised Shabaz’s video as “insightful” and echoed the sensation of disillusionment, whereas Ulrika Jonsson added a easy “Amen.”
Others, together with Ferne McCann, Sara Cox and The Traitors finalist Charlotte Chilton, additionally publicly supported the criticism with emoji reactions and likes.
Radio 1 presenter Greg James was blunt, suggesting the podcast had been ‘roaring’ on this course for a while.
He continued, saying, “What’s everybody’s favourite episode? Mine is the one the place an ‘skilled’ claimed that autism could be reversed by weight loss plan. Oh, and the one who mentioned Covid was a technological weapon. Neither declare was disputed. Nice stuff.’
In fact, this doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Amelia Whitworth, Head of Coverage, Campaigns & Youth at Plan Worldwide UK, informed Metro: ‘Misogyny has lengthy been embedded in our society, however we at the moment are seeing a wave of on-line content material that claims to sort out males’s points, whereas in actuality selling dangerous attitudes.
“This content material takes very actual fears and anxieties that boys and males can expertise, after which twists them into misogynistic concepts that ignore – or outright dismiss – the challenges girls face.
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‘What was as soon as restricted to the fringes of the web is turning into more and more mainstream. It’s deeply regarding to see these tales go unchallenged on one of many nation’s hottest podcasts.”
Dr. Ján Michalko, Analysis Fellow within the Gender Equality & Social Inclusion staff on the ODI World suppose tank, additionally echoed these sentiments when he spoke to us, saying: ‘It’s important that each one influencers and content material creators with tens of millions of followers think twice concerning the materials they put up on social media.
“Platforming concepts that undermine girls’s autonomy and rights, even when they arrive from the phrases of different folks, does have an effect as a result of it reaches tens of millions of individuals, together with males in search of steerage on what it means to be a profitable man in the present day.”
Longtime listeners have additionally expressed related considerations on-line. On Reddit, former followers described feeling more and more uncomfortable as discussions about male loneliness veered into hypothesis concerning the administration of copy and relationships at a societal degree.
One consumer famous that conversations framed as “huge concepts” typically fully ignored girls’s views, whereas one other mentioned the podcast’s refusal to meaningfully query visitors felt like complicity.
As Whitworth notes, “This does not occur in isolation. It’s accompanied by a well-funded, influential international struggle towards the rights of ladies and ladies. This motion seeks to perpetuate inequality by limiting girls’s freedom of alternative and bodily autonomy, together with by assaults on reproductive rights. That is typically formed by rhetoric about household values, which is then used as a instrument to restrict girls’s freedoms.’
These criticisms are compounded by broader questions on accountability. In 2024, a BBC investigation discovered that The Diary of a CEO had amplified dangerous well being misinformation, together with anti-vaccination narratives and unsupported claims that sure medical circumstances could possibly be reversed by weight loss plan.
A spokesperson for Diary Of A CEO informed Metro: ‘The Diary Of A CEO is a long-form, conversational podcast designed to discover the views and experiences of its visitors in their very own phrases. Inviting a visitor is an inquiry, not an approval. Steven Bartlett doesn’t undertake the opinions of his visitors neither is the format meant to move judgment on private views.
“To counsel {that a} host is accountable for each opinion of a visitor is a elementary misunderstanding of the long-form interview format.”
On solutions that the podcast has one thing to do with the ‘manosphere’, a spokesperson mentioned: ‘DOAC options visitors from throughout the political and cultural spectrum. In latest months alone, visitors have included Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom and a yet-to-be-published dialog with Zohran Mamdani. The archive of the podcast is public and instantly refutes this declare.”
However for a lot of exasperated listeners, that protection does not fairly really feel like sufficient. Because the backlash grows, many say the issue is just not freedom of speech, however the penalties of repeatedly platforming dangerous tales underneath the guise of truth and cause.
Like Dr. As Michalko put it, “As there’s a resurgence of voices advocating conventional and dangerous gender norms, any content material that questions girls’s autonomy can contribute to shifting what we normalize as folks’s rights and roles in society.
“Influential figures should method their social media content material with care, recognizing that we’re in a context of accelerating on-line and offline misogyny, whereas girls’s rights, particularly their reproductive rights, are being politically focused around the globe.”
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