Jonathan Ross has denied instigating his daughter Honey’s “toxic” diets when she was a teenager.
Honey, the middle child of Jonathan and his wife Jane Goldman, said she often saw comments about her weight when pictured with her famous parents in her younger years, which made her “hate” her body.
Speaking on Loose Women in 2020, the 27-year-old claimed her parents “tried to give solutions” to the problem and “presented” her with “absolutely toxic” diets, adding: “My advice to parents is keep that as far away from your children as possible, if you want them to have a good relationship with food and their bodies growing up do not shame them.”
Honey went on to say she understood why they offered her the advice, as she believes that is how society has been programmed to respond to body issues.
Four years on from her comments, Jonathan, 63, has denied he encouraged Honey to diet and said he followed her lead instead.
He told The Times: “Honey did struggle at school because we found out she was severely dyslexic. She also developed some body issues when she very young and we could see it was making her unhappy.
“She talked about getting fitter and going on a diet, which Jane and I tried to help her with. Crucially, though, the minute that Honey said she wanted to stop the diet, we said, ‘Great!'”
Addressing the previous headlines about “instigating” her diet, he added: “We took our cues from Honey.”
Fast forward the years and Honey is a writer and body positive campaigner with over 57,000 followers on Instagram. Finally more confident in her own skin, the podcaster said she no longer takes offence to being called “fat” and urges others to follow.
“I think fat is a good word, from the age of 18 I turned my views around and am comfortable in my fat body,” she previously shared.
“You can be fat and happy!”
Quizzed on if he feared Honey being in the spotlight, Jonathan said there were no apprehensions as she is “a smart adult” and “old enough to make her own decisions and her own mistakes”.
“I have f***ed up countless times in public. But all you can do is apologise, learn from it and be a better person,” he added in his latest interview alongside Honey.
His daughter went on to call him “a wonderful father” who helps get her through her “bad days” and ignore the haters.
Together they host a podcast called Reel Talk where they discuss all things film.
Honey is the second child of Jonathan and Jane, who are also parents to Betty Kitten and Harvey Kirby.
