A TV Host *Finally* Apologized to Meg Ryan 18 Years After Their Uncomfortable Interview

Over the past several months, we’ve seen a reckoning of sorts as people call out the uncomfortable interviews so many celebrities—particularly women—were subjected to decades ago. The latest interview that’s being brought back up is one Meg Ryan did on the British chat show Parkinson with host Michael Parkinson in 2003. She was on the show promoting her film In the Cut and things quickly got uncomfortable as Parkinson prodded her with questions—including mentioning her nudity in the film—and even pointed out her discomfort with journalists.

It’s been nearly two decades since the interview, which was also uncomfortable for viewers, but Parkinson just offered the star an apology on August 24th for how it all went down. Per Sky News, Parkinson offered up his sorry to Radio Times, saying, “I wish I hadn’t lost my temper with Meg Ryan. I wish I’d dealt with it in a more courteous manner. I was quite obviously angry with her and it’s not my business to be angry towards the guests. I came across as kind of pompous and I could have done better.”

Parkinson did say, though, that the whole interaction was partially the When Harry Met Sally star’s fault for becoming so short with him, but we can only imagine how uncomfortable she was feeling with not only the untoward questions but a hostile host.

Since the interview, both Parkinson and Ryan have spoken ill of each other, because the interview was just that bad. Sky News reported that Parkinson “has been asked about the infamous interview many times, and once called Ryan an ‘unhappy woman’ and a ‘bore,’ while she branded him a ‘nut’ and said he had spoken to her ‘like a disapproving dad’ over the nudity in her film.”

The clip above shows most of the interview but not all of it. It’s enough, though to see Ryan lock up as Parkinson keeps asking her uncomfortable questions. She eventually gets to the point where she tells him to “wrap it up,” which broke the tension slightly by inserting humor, but the underlying uncertainty of where the interview may go next was definitely present in Ryan’s words.

Ryan hasn’t responded to Parkinson’s apology, and really she shouldn’t have to. While it’s a decent gesture to own up to handling the situation poorly, the apology took nearly two decades to come about. Another interview in a long line of bad interviews that subjected women to unfair judgment and scrutiny, this one will stay in the books as probably Ryan’s worst—but she moved on from it, because that’s what women do.