Public Persona v Private Life: Contradictions & Perceptions

It all started last week. The article in the Sun newspaper alleging that a well-known TV presenter had been paying £35,000 in exchange for “sexual photos”. This story catapulted into a national debate about who the personality was. We all played a guessing game within our homes and friendship circles as to who it was, and eventually many presenters felt the need to publicly deny it was them, which in turn only added to more debate and intrigue surrounding a story that to its core remains painful and lifechanging for many of those involved. Fingers where pointed and opinions were at times harsh as the consensus seemed to be that yet again there has been an abuse of power by an overpaid and entitled TV presenter. The young person involved was 17 when the contact began, and their parents stated that they have a crack cocaine addiction that was being fed by the payments. The allegations grew as more young people came forward which only added to the drama and public debate, whilst at the same time, presumably, tightening the noose around the presenter’s neck who stood central to the news story.

Wednesday saw Vicky Flind, the wife of Huw Edwards, issuing a poignant and heartfelt statement about how the last few days had impacted their family and the ensuing consequence on Huw’s mental health. He was now in a psychiatric hospital where he would stay “for the foreseeable future”. His mental health has been spoken about previously, and he has personally in the past shared his struggles with depression publicly. For some of us who have previously noticed (and perhaps commented on) his weight loss (as seen on TV), it comes perhaps as no surprise that he had the “black dog” follow him around. A difficulty many can empathise and sympathise with from their own personal perspectives.

Being a public personality comes with a guaranteed lack of privacy and a general increase in pressure from the public in terms of being held as an ‘ideal’. The public have however always felt a great deal of warmth and affection towards Huw Edwards who appeared on our TV screens daily with a solemn and neutral face. He broke the news of Queen Elizabeth II’s death, wearing a black tie and suit, looking appropriately sombre. The word ‘appropriate’ seems to be very much integral to his career in TV. The public will have an expectation of well-known figures, slightly elevated from ordinary mortals, and therein lies the rub. The pressure that comes with having built oneself up to be of a particular character and having that public identity shattered and parts of your behaviour and personality essentially left exposed are not only incongruent with the public persona but also painful to say the least.

It now transpires that there were three aspects to Huw, and in all probability for many of us too. Namely, the public persona, the private life (husband, father, friend), and the secret self. The latter - it would appear – responsible for allegedly sending secret messages. Having to hold on to these different facets of oneself and not allowing them to blur at any time, can certainly be the cause of a pressure build-up and if the dam is broken, the result is chaos in every sense. For Huw, this meant being admitted into a psychiatric hospital, as he could simply not cope with the vitriol aimed at him, targeting his public and private persona. The Faustian pact had run its course and the day of reckoning had come not just for him, but for his wife and five children as well, proving to be too much for him resulting in a mental breakdown. The inevitability of this seems stark. His secret escape - the alleged messaging to young people now uncovered - was most likely his coping mechanism, when the pressures of maintaining status quo became all too much. Huw Edwards, it turns out, is human, like everybody else, and makes mistakes. However his mistakes are announced and played out in the public domain, and for him being one of the most recognised faces in this country it must be immensely hard, humiliating and exposing.