‘I was an insufferable pain in the hoop at times’ – Ryan Tubridy on his ‘Late Late Show’ career and partying with Russell Crowe

Ryan Tubridy has said he finds interviewing guests on his podcast "more liberating" than the format when he was host of The Late Late Show.

The Dublin presenter left RTÉ following a controversy at the national broadcaster in 2023.

He was RTÉ’s highest earner before he left to take up a role as a presenter on Virgin Radio UK.

"The Late Late Show was tough because you had 12-15 minutes [to interview guests]. Now I am doing a books podcast and I get these guests that I interviewed on The Late Late Show for 12-15 minutes and it was torture because it’s a construct," he said.

"I enjoyed the job, but now that I have them for the hour it’s great and you can get to know them and you have a proper conversation and see who the real person is. That is very liberating."

He was speaking with Mark Moriarty, a chef, TV host and author, on his podcast Roasted with Mark Moriarty.

Tubridy launched his own podcast The Bookshelf with Ryan Tubridy last April, which is now in its second season.

On the podcast, he talks to guests about the books that had the most influence on their lives.

Now in its second season, guests such as Simon Harris, Brian O’Driscoll and Piers Morgan have sat down to chat with the broadcaster.

In the interview with Moriarty, Tubridy was asked about an interaction with another chef, Gordon Ramsay, who once mocked his ears during an interview.

At the time in 2009, the Hell’s ­Kitchen star ridiculed Tubridy, talking about his "over-sized lobes" in front of a live ­television audience. Days after the incident, Tubridy said there were "no hard feelings" between him and Ramsay following the exchange.

"I look back at parts of my career and I think, what an insufferable pain in the hoop that guy is," he said, talking about himself.

"And then I look back and say, ‘fair play, well done’. I’m not self-loathing, but there’s just... I think if you’re a footballer you have good seasons and bad seasons. What’s nice about being 51 is I can look back honestly and say, ‘that was probably rubbish’."

In the 12-part podcast series, Moriarty prepares a dish for each of his guests, inspired by one of their favourite ingredients or flavours, with Tubridy choosing cinnamon as his ingredient. He described himself as having a ­"nursery palette", preferring plain and ­traditional food to fancy multi-course meals.

He said he prefers cans of beer to wine, telling Moriarty about the "memorable nights" he had at house parties in his brother’s home with Late Late Show guests.

"Michael Fassbender is quite a handy singer and he came back to my brother’s house," Tubridy said.

"My brother would say ‘come on back to my house if the green room is dead’ and we’d bring some of the team, whoever’s around, and some of the guests... we had some memorable nights."

The Dubliner also name-checked Michael Gambon, Russell Crowe and the late Gerry Ryan as some of the big names that showed up to the house.

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"I became friendly with Russell Crowe, we had some beers in the green room and I said, ‘look, I’m going home’, so he said, ‘we’re going back to Ryan’s’. And I lit the fire, it was myself and Russell and his girlfriend and his security detail and the piano is there – it’s a small house, books, fireplace, bit of a piano – and it was a great night," Tubridy said.

He described himself as a "nerd" when it comes to American politics, which made attending the St Patrick’s Day Shamrock Ceremony in the White House a great experience.

Tubridy was invited there a few times, and while there, he crossed paths with Martin McGuinness, Gerry Adams and even Meghan Markle when she was in the show Suits.

He recalled being invited into Mr McGuinness and Mr Adams’s car on one occasion when he was ushered out of the way of the American president and the taoiseach. The Sinn Féin politicians brought him into the banquet they were attending, with Adams saying Tubridy should pretend to be the Belfast mayor who could not attend on the day.

Tubridy recalled excusing himself, whereby he went over to one of the protocol people and asked to leave.

"She said you see the daylight there? Walk down gently, keep going, so I walked down the steps into the bright, March day and then sat down against a wall and said, ‘how did that happen?’. So, I escaped with a story under my arm," he said.

Listen to ‘Roasted with Mark ­Moriarty’ every Wednesday on ­Spotify, Apple, YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.