The Chase’s Anne Hegerty refutes cheating allegations

The Chase’s Anne Hegerty has hit back against allegations that she and the other stars of the quiz show have cheated.

The 65-year-old quizzer is one of six ‘chasers’ on the teatime ITV game show, and in a new interview with the Daily Star, she revealed that she routinely faces people accusing her of not playing by the rules.

The Chase first aired on ITV in 2009, and each episode features four contestants who individually attempt to raise as much money as possible against a professional quizzer, or ‘chaser’, who tries to prevent them from taking home the prize.

“I get people saying all sorts of things,” Hegerty, who is known as ‘The Governess’ on the show, told the newspaper. “They ask me if I cheat. They say, ‘You’ve got someone in your ears telling you the answers.”

“Others say Bradley [Walsh, the show’s host] reads the questions faster for the chasers. I’ve checked with a stopwatch and he doesn’t do that. If the show did any of that, wouldn’t they get six better-looking people?”

“There are always going to be cynical people, but we have independent adjudicators – there’s nothing secret happening,” she continued. “It wouldn’t work if it wasn’t all above board.”

“If people want to see how good we are, they can go against us. We’re always going to quizzes that are public. I go to quizzes a lot to maintain my skills. Sometimes I lose and sometimes I win.”

Hegerty has been on The Chase since its second series in 2010. The show, which routinely draws three to five million viewers, has won multiple National Television Awards and has spawned the spinoff series Beat the Chasers.

The show has encountered controversy before. Back in 2019, a question was posed about The Prodigy just hours after the death of the band’s frontman Keith Flint.

Host Bradley Walsh asked one contestant: “Which of these chart acts has the fewest members?” Three options were given for the answer, including The Pretenders, The Proclaimers, and The Prodigy.

Many viewers took to Twitter after the broadcast, criticising the decision to air the episode and the “bad timing” of the question.

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