Miriam Margolyes’ most well-known feuds through the years

Miriam Margolyes is known for saying exactly what she thinks and isn’t afraid to hold back in interviews. 

And over the course of her career the comedian and actress has found herself clashing with several high profile celebrities. 

From Monty Python star John Cleese to popstar Lily Allen, Miriam hasn’t always seen eye to eye with everyone she has encountered. 

Here MailOnline take a look at her famous feuds and most offensive insults over the years. 

Lily Allen 

Miriam revealed she had a less than favourable experience with singer Lily Allen when the two appeared together on The Graham Norton Show back in 2014. 

In a 2014 episode of BBC‘s The Graham Norton Show, Miriam, 83, was a guest alongside Dominic Cooper and Lily Allen, 39.

Yet Miriam clashed with Lily, with the actress explaining:  ‘She thought when she was on the programme that it was all about her.’

Miriam continued: ‘She thought: “Who is this woman? Miriam who?” She wasn’t friendly and I didn’t like that and so I showed my dislike, which wasn’t very nice of me because she was much younger than me and I should have just taught her how to behave.’ 

Leonardo DiCaprio 

Miriam branded Hollywood heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio ‘smelly’ during a live appearance on This Morning back in 2022. 

The star discussed working alongside Leonardo in the 1996 Baz Luhrmann adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.

Miriam shocked the hosts when she announced: ‘He was a bit smelly because it was very hot in Mexico and young boys don’t make themselves fragrant, they don’t wash all the bits!’

She went on to note that she’d advised one of the This Morning production team to look into their personal hygiene, leaving Holly and Phil hiding behind their hands.

John Cleese

Miriam hasn’t held back with her negative opinion of John Cleese after she said the Monty Python star ‘has become an a***hole’.

Last year, Miriam said ‘poisonous’ John had ‘turned sour and is an irrelevance’ as she spoke in an interview. 

The comedian reflected on her time at Cambridge University with the Fawlty Towers star and scathingly branding him a ‘puny tadpole of a person.’

It came after John revealed why he could never be cancelled, despite being targeted after he criticised political correctness. 

Speaking ahead of her book, Oh Miriam!: Stories from an Extraordinary Life, Miriam told The Guardian how she was treated with contempt by John and his Monty Python co-star Graham Chapman while at University. 

During the early 1960s she performed as part of the student sketch troupe Cambridge Footlights, but was ‘ignored’ as the group’s only woman. 

She recalled: ‘I think they thought I was too full of myself because in those days women were literally not allowed to join the club. Graham Chapman and John Cleese were poisonous. 

‘John was a brilliant comedian in his day, but something has turned. Like milk, he’s gone sour. He’s an irrelevance… Cleese is a puny tadpole of a person.’ 

Discussing her dislike of the male world of comedy, she wrote in her memoir This Much is True: ‘I admire the creation of Monty Python and The Goodies and I think they were men of genius, but they were not gentlemen.

John Cleese, Bill Oddie and Graham Chapman were total s***s — and they have never apologised. The only one who did was the late Tim Brooke-Taylor. 

‘All the perpetrators went into light entertainment and I went into drama, so thankfully our paths were seldom to cross. But nearly 60 years later I have not forgotten.’

Steve Martin 

Miriam slammed famed comedian Steve Martin in 2023 after she starred in a film with with him in the Eighties. 

The Harry Potter star worked with Steve on the 1986 movie Little Shop of Horrors, and claims the experience was ‘vile’ and described her American co-star as ‘unkind’.

‘I just thought he was rather horrid. He was a c***, that’s all I can tell you,’ she alleged in an interview with News.com.

Miriam explained she had to share a scene with Martin, now 78, in which he played a dentist and she was a receptionist.

In the scene, her character is ‘punched’ by Martin’s and she explained it took several takes before the funnyman was satisfied. 

Miriam described the Father of the Bride star, 78, as a ‘brilliant perfectionist,’ but she felt left out of the process.

‘I didn’t enjoy it and I had a splitting headache at the end of the day,’ she said. ‘[Steve Martin] was incredibly unfriendly, because he was a perfectionist.’

She did have some nice words for Martin though, calling him very ‘gifted’ and her scene in the finished film with him ‘very good’.

Jeremy Hunt 

Miriam didn’t hold back in saying what she really thought about the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt after a BBC Radio 4 interview in October 2022. 

Jeremy had been interviewed by journalist Justin Webb about his plans for the government’s new economic strategy on the Today Programme, in the slot before Miriam.

The comedian had been on the show to speak about the passing of her friend, Harry Potter actor Robbie Coltrane, who died yesterday.

But she decided to go off-piste and decided to make her views about the new (at the time) Chancellor known.

‘I never thought I’d be sitting in the seat… [that Jeremy Hunt was sat in]’ she said.

‘When I saw him there I just said “you’ve got a hell of a job, the best of luck”, and what I really wanted to say was “f*** you, you b*****d!” But you can’t say that.’

Miriam told producers afterwards that she mistakenly believed she was off air, the BBC said.

Harry Potter Fans

Earlier this year, Miriam enraged adult Harry Potter fans by claiming they should be ‘over’ the book by now as it is ‘for children’.

The actress and national treasure played Professor Sprout in the acclaimed film series, based on J.K. Rowling‘s books.

Despite insisting it was ‘wonderful’ and she was ‘very grateful’ to the franchise, the BAFTA award-winning actress said adult fans should be ‘over that’ by now.

In an interview with New Zealand television network 1News, Miriam admitted: ‘I worry about Harry Potter fans.

She went on: ‘They should be over that by now. It was 25 years ago and it’s for children. I think it’s for children.

‘But they get stuck in it and I do cameos and people say ‘Oh we are having a Harry Potter-themed wedding’ and I think ‘gosh what’s their first night of fun going to be. I can’t even think about it.

‘Harry Potter is wonderful, I’m very grateful to it, it’s over.’