Audiences were unimpressed when Rachel Burden and Ben Boulos started giggling over a news segment about a criminal act on BBC Breakfast
BBC Breakfast hosts Rachel Burden and Ben Boulos have come under fire for laughing during a segment on a piece of art being damaged by tourists in Italy.
The controversy unfolded during Sunday’s (15 June) episode of the chat show when the presenting pair returned to the red sofa to discuss some of the day’s trending stories. One of them featured viral CCTV footage from the Palazzo Maffei museum in Verona, Italy, which showed a couple damaging a Van Gogh-style chair adorned with hundreds of crystals.
Ben introduced the clip, asking: “Now have you ever visited a museum and been tempted, even though you’re not supposed to, to touch a piece of art and thought better of it?”
As the CCTV footage began to play, Rachel added: “Well just watch this because this is CCTV footage of a couple who decided to try out a chair.”
“This was a Van Gogh style chair covered in hundreds of crystals inside a museum in Verona,” she explained, as the video showed the chair beginning to sway.
“It wasn’t supposed to look like that. It wasn’t supposed to be wonky. But as you can see…” Rachel continued, as Ben burst out laughing on air.
“The man decided ‘I might as well try it out’ and it immediately collapses,” she said. “At which point, him and his wife say ‘quick! get out of here!’”
Ben was still giggling when he added: “It now tells a story. It tells a new story. Art evolves doesn’t it?” Rachel replied: “They’ve added, you can say, to the art work.”
The hosts went on to comment on the aftermath, with Rachel pointing out: “The couple apparently fled the museum before staff noticed what had happened.
“I mean quite how sort of vigorously this couple is now being pursued by the authorities I do not know, they certainly left their mark.”
Ben laughed again, telling viewers: “They did, indeed. Imagine that moment of horror when it happened and you thought ‘Oh dear, we’re in trouble’.”
Rachel chimed in: “Then realised that it has been beamed around the world on news programmes.”
“Exactly. Like this,” Ben replied. But the presenting duo’s jokey tone didn’t sit well with many watching from home. Viewers quickly took to social media to voice their disappointment with the hosts for ‘trivialising’ the destruction of a valuable piece of art.
One person took to X saying: “I hope they catch the couple from the museum. Also don’t understand why BBC Breakfast are treating it as a laugh and a joke.”
Another added: “Seem to have totally skipped over the fact the guy destroyed a piece of art… He had no right to try it out! #BBCBreakfast.”
This comes after Ben admitted to being embarrassed last year when he mistakenly thought a guest was disagreeing with him on air, but she actually had a brain disorder that was causing involuntary muscle spasms, shaking her face and neck.
He told fellow BBC Breakfast host Sarah Campbell: “The thing about this job that we do is that if you say something wrong, put your foot in it, it can very easily go viral.”
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