Ben Shephard sparks GMB uproar after controversial ‘kung-fu’ comment: ‘Did not say that!’

With children returning to the classroom up and down the country in March, the topic of keeping schools open into the summer to make up for lost time sparked debate on today’s Good Morning Britain. Ben Shephard and Susanna Reid were joined by teacher Matthew Burton and mums Afua Adom and Debbie Le on GMB to discuss the proposals and whether it’d be beneficial to children and parents or not.

However, just moments after introducing Debbie, Afua and Matthew onto the programme, Ben addressed a slight technical blunder.

It soon transpired that there was a bit of delay on guest Debbie’s link, as her voice could be heard out of sync with the visuals from the webcam.

However, Ben got on the wrong side of some ITV viewers when he described the mishap as like a “badly-dubbed kung-fu movie”.

Taking to Twitter, several took issue with the phrasing as one weighed in: “Did Ben Shephard really just tell an Asian guest who’s audio wasn’t in sync with their camera that they look like a badly dubbed Kung Fu movie?! #GMB @GMB.”

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“And, you know, the pandemic has effected my children massively, they haven’t had a normal life this past year.

“They’ve become quite withdrawn, I’ve seen it’s really affected their confidence, emotionally and mentally,

“And for them not to be at school, not to be with their friends – for them to go back to school in the summer I think will be a massive benefit to them.”

But Ben and Susanna quickly jumped in to apologise for the technical error during Debbie’s answer, with the latter chiming in: “I just want to apologise for – there’s a big delay between the picture and what you’re saying.”