RYAN TUBRIDY HAS said he “can’t accept responsibility for the whole storm” surrounding RTÉ as he embarks on an Irish media blitz.
Last month, Tubridy told The Irish Times that he has “evolved” since the RTÉ payments scandal and this morning made his first Irish TV appearance since the controversy broke in June 2023.
He appeared on Virgin Media’s Ireland AM and will once more appear on Virgin Media on Monday night as a guest on The Assembly Ireland, a show in which guests face questions from a group of autistic and neurodivergent adults “where no topic is off the table”.
In his first Irish TV appearance in over two years this morning, Tubridy told Ireland AM that he “will always accept responsibility for anything I was responsible for, but I can’t accept responsibility for the whole storm”.
RTÉ was plunged into crisis in June 2023 when it was announced that RTÉ had overpaid Tubridy by over €345,000 and had falsely reported his earnings to the public since 2017.
As he returns to Irish telly on The Assembly, Ryan Tubridy talks to us this week about how family, friends and therapy kept him going and why he’d be open to returning to the national broadcaster. pic.twitter.com/nWx5yiak5h
— RTÉ Guide (@RTE_GUIDE) February 3, 2026
When asked by Ireland AM if he had noticed there was “something different in the payslips”, Tubridy said he did and that he “said something to the bosses”.
“For whatever reason, they did their own accountancy and told people about how it all rolled,” he said.
He described it as a “very peculiar practice”, before adding “but that’s how it worked”.
“In retrospect, I should have said more and that’s fair, but the whole picture was so difficult because I felt that I was kind of put out front to a systemic problem,” he said.
“In other words, there was a wall of problems, and I was a brick in that wall.
“I will always – and I have always – and will always accept responsibility for anything I was responsible for, but I can’t accept responsibility for the whole storm.”
🗣️ “I will always — and I have always — and will always accept responsibility for anything I was responsible for.”
In his first TV interview in two years, Ryan Tubridy spoke on Ireland AM about the RTÉ pay scandal, saying he accepts his share of responsibility.
#IrelandAM pic.twitter.com/H0HRonN7MV— Ireland AM (@IrelandAMVMTV) February 5, 2026
Tubridy said he took responsibility for “whatever I did and had responsibility for” but added that there “were bigger problems” and that he “understands” why “people would be let down by that, but also by me”.
Meanwhile, the former Late Late Show presenter said that he told his now-wife Clare Kambamettu, a former Rose of Tralee who he met on his radio show in early 2023, that she could “take the door” during the 2023 controversy.
“When we were in the middle of the storm, I said to her, ‘look, you can go now, because I’m not much use you’.
🗣️ “I said to her, look, you can go now because I’m not much use to you.”
Ryan Tubridy shares how his now‑wife Clare stood by him through the RTÉ scandal — even telling him she liked him more for how he handled it.
#IrelandAM pic.twitter.com/4IeL9BfcVX
— Ireland AM (@IrelandAMVMTV) February 5, 2026
“I had my family and friends and people advising, lovely people around me, and then I was Clare in the middle of it all, and pretty fresh into my life at that point.
“And I said, ‘I don’t think I’m going to be much use to you as a human being at the moment, for a while. So please feel free to take the door, just head, because I don’t think it’s fair that you’d have this’.
“And she said something along the lines of, ‘no, I kind of liked you before all this happened, but the way you’re acting now and staying tough, I kind of like a bit more’, and I went, ‘I think this is going to work out’ and boy did it work out.”
Tubridy is engaging in a media blitz since his departure from Virgin Radio last year.
He was on the cover of the most recent RTÉ Guide magazine and will be a guest on Miriam O’Callaghan’s upcoming Sunday morning programme on RTÉ Radio One.
This appearance on Sunday with Miriam will be Tubridy’s first on RTÉ since he left the broadcaster.
Meanwhile, it was announced yesterday that he is set to join the weekend line-up of Times Radio, taking over the 1pm to 4pm slot on Sundays from 22 March.
