Thomas Skinner is a long way from Strictly in fiery Question Time rant

Thomas Skinner found himself in a fiery exchange as he made an appearance on the BBC’s topical debate show Question Time this week.

Former The Apprentice candidate Thomas, 35, joined host Fiona Bruce on Thursday (March 27) to discuss the current affairs alongside justice minister Jake Richards, former security minister Tom Tugendhat and the Liberal Democrats’ Layla Moran. 

The TV personality, who last appeared on the BBC as a contestant on dance programme Strictly in 2025, took to the panel as it landed in Clacton on Sea. 

Thomas and host Fiona, 61, had a back and forth as the panel was quizzed around the ongoing debate about social media addiction. 

It followed news this week that Meta and Google were found liable for a woman’s social media addiction and ordered to pay her $3million (£2.2m) in damages.

Thomas, who regularly shares videos with his 536,000 followers on TikTok, which include him eating breakfast at his favourite café, hit out against the dangers of social media usage among young people. 

Admitting he makes money from posting on platforms including Instagram and TikTok, the media personality insisted his platform was about ‘spreading a bit of positivity and a bit of love’.

But Fiona didn’t hold back in confronting him on his use of the platforms, suggesting that he too was part of the problem young people face with social media usage.

She said: ‘You are benefiting from social media, you make part of your living that way and, part of the reason you are able to do so is because of the addictive algorithms that will push people towards your [content].

‘It is giving you a platform, and job opportunities come your way because of it. In the nicest possible way, you are part of the problem.’

Fiona, who has hosted the programme since 2019, added: ‘How can you on the one hand say “people shouldn’t be doing it so much” but, on the other hand, you are benefiting from it?’

However, Thomas insisted: ‘It’s bad. It’s bad when people sit on their phone all day. I’ve seen it myself. 

‘I’ve done it myself, I sometimes know I’ve got to be up in four hours and I’ve sat there and I’ve scrolled my brains through, watching absolute nonsense.’

He added: ‘I don’t know if anyone has seen my videos, but my videos are mainly of me in a cafe called Deano’s Cafe in new Spitalfields Market, saying “Good morning you lovely people”, showing what I’ve got for breakfast and going, “bosh”.

‘There’s a time and a place… if you’ve got kids, as parents you should say, “listen, kids, you can have it an hour in the evening” or whatever you want to do.’

Other panellists stepped in to defend Thomas, with one arguing that his clips ‘do not drive the worst of the algorithm’ online.  

Layla Moran chimed in: ‘The ones that are are the ones promoting hate, that are purposefully putting people against each other, people are posting things that are not true and purposefully there to incite other people. 

‘What we’ve got to do now is recognise that this is harming society, is making people not believe each other, fewer and fewer people believe what they see anywhere, the BBC included. 

‘We’ve got to now get to a point where these companies are held to account.’

It comes after Meta and Google were found liable for a woman’s social media addiction and have been ordered to pay her £2.2million.

The first-of-its-kind lawsuit saw the plaintiff, a 20-year-old referred to only as Kaley, accuse the tech giants of hooking her to their platforms.

Kaley started using YouTube at six, downloading the app on her iPod Touch to watch videos about lip gloss and an online kids game. She joined Instagram at nine after getting around a block her mother had put in place to keep her off the platform. 

After more than 40 hours of deliberation across nine days, California jurors decided the tech giants were negligent in the design or operation of their platforms.

The jury also decided each company’s negligence was a substantial factor in causing harm to Kaley, who alleged her use of social media as a child addicted her to the technology and exacerbated her mental health struggles.

Jurors also found that both companies knew or should have known their services posed a danger to minors, that they failed to adequately warn users of that danger and that a reasonable platform operator would have done so. 

Jurors assigned Meta 70 percent of the responsibility for Kaley’s harm – a $2.1million (£1.5m) share of the compensatory award – and YouTube the remaining 30 percent, or $900,000 (£675,000). 

Meta and Google-owned YouTube were the two remaining defendants in Kaley’s social media addiction case after TikTok and Snap each settled before the trial began.

Jurors listened to about a month of lawyers’ arguments, testimony and evidence, and they heard from Kaley, as well as Meta leaders Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri. YouTube’s CEO, Neal Mohan, was not called in to testify.

Kaley told jurors that her near-constant social media use ‘really affected my self-worth,’ saying the apps led her to abandon hobbies, struggle to make friends and constantly measure herself against others.

In closing arguments, plaintiff attorney Mark Lanier cast the case as a story of corporate greed. He argued that features on the apps were engineered to drive compulsive use among young people.

But the tech giants maintained throughout the trial that Kaley’s mental health struggles had nothing to do with their platforms.

Meta lawyer Paul Schmidt highlighted her turbulent relationship with her mother, playing jurors a recording that appeared to capture her mother yelling and cursing at her.

YouTube disputed how much time Kaley actually spent on its platform, with its attorney telling the court that usage records showed she averaged little more than a minute a day on the very features her lawyers called addictive.

The jury completely sided with Kaley in the case and rejected all arguments made by the defence.  

Elsewhere, Thomas doubled down on his claim that the Strictly voting was rigged to boot him off show while on Good Morning Britain.

The Apprentice star, who took part in the 23rd series of the BBC dance competition alongside partner Amy Dowden, 35, caught up with Susanna Reid, 55, and Ed Balls, 58, in January. 

Thomas and Amy were the first to be voted off the programme, and he ended up pulling out of the finale last month, which saw Karen Carney, 38, lift the Glitterball trophy alongside partner Carlos Gu, 33. 

Back in December it was reported that he was ‘seeking legal advice’ after he claimed ‘BBC bosses rigged official voting figures.’ 

Ed asked the reality star in the studio: ‘Some of our viewers who will think that you still believe the vote was rigged against you? Is that what you believe?’

Thomas – who shot to fame on The Apprentice in 2019 – told the hosts: ‘Look, listen, all I am going to say is I’ve got a lot of bad noise in the press, I was front page every day, it wasn’t good for the show.

‘I know I can’t dance, I know I can’t dance. I enjoyed dancing with Amy because she’s an absolute legend. 

‘All I’m going to say is whenever I put something on social media, I get like 20 million views and about 200,000 likes. Do you know what I mean?’ 

Susanna read out that the BBC said: ‘Strictly Come Dancing’s public vote is independently over seen and verified to ensure complete accuracy every week.’ 

Last month Thomas said on X: ‘On the night I left the show, I received an anonymous email claiming to be from a BBC exec with stats, saying I’d received far more votes than it appeared and it wasn’t right. I’ve since had the email independently verified.’ 

It was later reported an independent poll showed the star received just 1.4% of the public vote, despite his claims he received an anonymous email of evidence proving otherwise.

The exit poll of 125K viewers was conducted by website Strictly Spoiler and is completely separate from the BBC main vote. The poll showed ‘clear evidence of his unpopularity’ after he received just 1805 votes, the lowest of all the contestants. 

A source told The Mirror at the time: ‘The poll – which is larger than an exit poll for a- comprehensively shows that Skinner was the least popular contestant by a long way. There is no conspiracy. These are the cold, hard facts’. 

Thomas and Amy scored 29 out of 80 over two shows and landed in the bottom two with former rugby player Chris Robshaw, who was eventually saved by the judges.

A BBC spokesperson said last month: ‘Strictly Come Dancing’s public vote is independently overseen and verified to ensure complete accuracy every week. Any claims to the contrary are entirely without foundation. 

‘Unfortunately, despite requests for it, Mr Skinner is yet to share the email he references with anyone from the BBC so we are unable to comment on it’.

In addition, PromoVeritas – the company who independently verify the Strictly public vote – said: ‘All votes are independently and comprehensively verified by two auditors. We can confirm that all votes received are validated. This has been the case every week.’

Thomas also opened up about his unlikely friendship with the US vice president JD Vance, 41, while on GMB.

‘Basically he sent me a message on Instagram or Twitter, he said I love your videos, I love your motivation,’ Thomas explained to the hosts. 

‘I’m a bit of a fan, can we meet up for a pint when I come to the UK?’

He travelled to the Cotswolds with his family and had a nice day out with them, and then in the evening changed into a suit, was picked up and they went to David Cameron’s old house. 

‘There was a local pub he wanted to try, but he didn’t want to shut the pub down so he employed the people to cook the food in the house, in the garden,’ Thomas recalled.

Thomas previously wrote on X: ‘When the Vice President of the USA invites ya for a BBQ an beers, you say yes. 

‘Unreal night with JD and his friends n family. He was a proper gent. Lots of laughs and some fantastic food. 

‘A brilliant night, one to tell the grand kids about mate. Bosh.’

Question Time airs Thursdays at 10:40pm on BBC One and iPlayer