Richard Osman tells celebrities to stop spouting their political opinions: ‘Nobody is listening to you’

British author and presenter Richard Osman has hit out at politically vocal celebrities, telling them to stop spouting their political opinions because “nobody is listening to you.”

Over the past few weeks, several Hollywood figures, including George Clooney and Rob Reiner, have called on President Joe Biden to step down following his shaky performance at the first 2024 presidential debate last month against Donald Trump.

“I genuinely think this is every single election over here and in America – show business does get involved and we hear the opinions of celebrities and we hear about the importance of their views on the records of different candidates and their views on the direction of the country they live in,” Osman, 53, said on a recent episode of his The Rest is Entertainment podcast.

“Nobody has ever given the first toss about anything anyone from the entertainment industry has ever said about any political issue,” The Thursday Murder Club author continued. “There’s a load of little things that happen in this country and you can send a tweet and people go, ‘Oh yeah, that was an interesting take on that.’”

Arguing that an election is “way beyond the scope of the entertainment industry,” he added: “You can have all the opinions you want, you can spout whatever you want to do on whatever forum you want to, you can talk on whatever chat show you want to, nobody is listening to you.

“Because in elections, people are thinking about their house, their neighbors, their school, their town, their infrastructure, their safety, that’s all they’re thinking about,” Osman said, “and every single time somebody in show business gives an opinion on an election, it does the exact opposite thing of what it’s supposed to do, and yet