Katherine Ryan has said that Victoria Beckham reached out to her after a controversial joke she made during an episode of Have I Got News For You.
Canadian comedian Ryan, 43, was appearing on the BBC panel show last November when she alluded to a leaked email sent by Beckham’s husband, ex-England footballer Sir David Beckham, in which he allegedly used the word “c**t”.
Ryan joked on the programme: “I don’t know that we are allowed to broadcast the c-word, but you did reference Victoria Beckham earlier and we’ll allow that.”
Her remark prompted complaints at the time, which were upheld following an investigation by the broadcaster’s Executive Complaints Unit. “There was no such justification for a comment which presented Victoria Beckham as equivalent to a particularly offensive word,” it ruled.
The joke was subsequently edited out of the episode on iPlayer.
Ryan has now reflected on the quip, telling Heat magazine: “If Victoria had seen the broadcast she would have known it was tongue-in-cheek. I never actually used the C-word, I was being cheeky while trying to wrap up a segment.
According to Ryan, the former Spice Girl singer had “reached out to me as soon as it happened and said she was offended”.
“I unreservedly apologised and said ’I love you and I’m really sorry. This is just how I am and I certainly didn’t mean to hurt any feelings,’” Ryan explained.
“That’s the last I heard from her and I haven’t reached out to Victoria since. I think you should say sorry once, and leave it at that. Maybe we can patch things up one day.”
The Independent has contacted a representative of Beckham for comment.
Ryan, known for her appearances on British panel shows and the comedy competition series Taskmaster, issued a statement last month addressing her remarks.
Speaking in a video shared to social media, she said: “Today the BBC announced their decision to uphold a complaint made by two very influential viewers about a joke that I tried to make on an episode of Have I Got News For You.
"At that time, though there is no defence, I was suffering from a condition called matrescence. I was in that building with a 10-day-old baby. Should I have left the house?”
Matrescence is a word used to denote the physical and psychological process of becoming a mother.
Ryan gave birth to a her fourth child, Holland, in October 2025; the father is her long-term partner Bobby Kootstra.
She continued in the video: “This is gonna be a tough one for the feminists because I was a woman going to work but I did call another woman a c***.
"Sometimes I forget that celebrities are not my friends. If I had called Jimmy Carr a c***, he wouldn’t have minded. Joanne McNally, c***, she wouldn’t have minded. But this was described by the BBC as a slur, as though c**** are part of a protected group.
“If you watched it on the day, it was clearly a joke and the whole audience went (gasp) and then I said, ‘woah, I love her.’”