'They took everything from me' - Father Ted creator breaks down on Northern Irish talkshow

The creator of Father Ted broke down on a late night Northern Irish talk show while discussing the impact his involvement in trans discourse has had on he and his family. 

Graham Linehan became emotional during a virtual interview with Stephen Nolan on Nolan Live today, stating, "They took everything from me. They took my family." 

Best known for his award-winning shows Father Ted and The IT Crowd, he was previously banned from Twitter because of his stance on transgenderism, which he discussed frequently on the platform. 

He said on the show: "Before this, all I was doing you know [was] writing comedy and playing board games and being silly on the internet, and then I just said 'Hang on a sec, stop calling these women terfs, stop sending them abuse, let them speak' and for that they just destroyed me." 

The word "terf" is an acronym meaning 'Trans Exclusive Radical Feminist', and is - according to Oxford Languages -"a feminist who excludes the rights of transgender women from their advocacy of women's rights". 

The comedian and writer confirmed the breakup of his marriage following strain from financial insecurity due to loss of work. 

When Mr Nolan prompted Mr Linehan about whether he truly felt destroyed, he responded with: "No, because the one thing about this that keeps me going is that I know I'm right. I know I'm right. When you open up a newspaper and see words, as I have many times, about sexual offenders who have suddenly decided they're women and the words 'her penis' comes up, well every time I see something like that I just think 'Well I'm right and everyone else is wrong'." 

Trans row – Father Ted creator Graham Linehan breaks down in tears #NolanLIVE

Watch on @BBCiPlayer pic.twitter.com/xio86ZtA8X

— Stephen Nolan (@StephenNolan) March 24, 2022

He continued: "It's a very strange position for me to be in, it's the opposite position to one I've been in for my whole life. Sex is important, women are real, women's language is important, women need words like 'woman' to describe themselves, these are all just basic things." 

A clip of the Nolan Live segment has since garnered almost 90,000 views on social media.