It’s been almost thirty years since Iain Lee roamed the streets for Channel 4’s 11 O’Clock Show, armed with a clipboard and microphone, with a list of crude questions hidden up his oversized suit sleeve. Now 52, he has presumably matured since his memorable interview with singer Cleo Laine about her husband’s masturbation habits. But perhaps not entirely, because this summer Lee hit the streets again, where, among other things, he mimed giving a blowjob to a 76-year-old who claimed he’d never been attracted to a man. Lee admits much of the original show’s content was homophobic, but he came out as bisexual in 2019 and now explores topics his younger self might have avoided.
Next month, Lee returns with “Impostor Syndrome,” his first solo live performance in a decade. The show is billed as a celebration of his thirty years in show business, but it’s also a personal experiment. He clarifies that he’s “recovering from impostor syndrome,” a significant theme for Lee, who is nearly five years sober after battling drug, sex, and alcohol addiction. His career has been checkered—often feeling overshadowed by Jimmy Carr—and his personal life eventful, much of it broadcast publicly.
“I don’t really have a filter,” he says. “So it all kind of comes out.” Since moving from TV to radio in 2005, his on-air revelations have included being sexually abused by his cubmasters at age nine, coming out as bisexual, discussing his addictions, and announcing his divorce. On 2017’s “I’m a Celebrity,” he shared past suicidal feelings and calling the Samaritans. In 2019, he had what he calls “a kind of breakdown on air,” declaring his own TalkRadio show pointless. Before our conversation, I learned from his Patreon podcast that he’d been trying to lose weight for a photo shoot—”Holy shit, man! Did I say that?” he exclaims, running his fingers through his hair—and that he’d just proposed to his long-term best friend, co-host, and producer Katherine Boyle on a boat on Lake Como (she said yes).
Lee became a professional counselor in 2022, retraining partly in response to his life experiences. The blue-painted lounge seen by his Patreon subscribers doubles as a counseling room for his 20 clients. But a few months ago, he called Katherine and said, “I’ve just booked a night at the Stables [venue in Milton Keynes].” She replied, “What the fuck are you doing?” to which he responded, “I don’t know, but something is happening.”
“Something has shifted,” he explains. He had a similar feeling before The 11 O’Clock Show took off in 1998, envisioning himself in a grey suit with a microphone and a crowd behind him. This time, he can’t see the vision, but he feels something is going to happen.
“Impostor Syndrome” includes a watch-along of The 11 O’Clock Show. His mother recorded all his shows on VHS tapes, which he stored in boxes in the garage, but this year he digitized them. His social media is filled with his archive, leading one to wonder if he’s living off his youth or learning to accept it. Why is he revisiting the past?
“I’m making peace with my past,” he says. “I was never very proud of my TV career. I thought it was shit.”
He considers himself both fortunate and unfortunate to have had co-stars like Sacha Baron Cohen, Ricky Gervais, Daisy Donovan, and Mackenzie Crook on The 11 O’Clock Show (he’s only stayed in touch with Crook, his former flatmate). “I compared myself to Sacha and Rick…”He also apologized for sending intimate images to some listeners. “You can ask me about the dick pics,” he says. “I don’t want to sound like Russell Brand and say, ‘Well, it was all consensual,’ but it was all consensual.” Boyle has been by his side through everything. “She’s a remarkable human being, and I am blessed that she’s my fiancée. See, now I’m going to cry again!” he says. “I’ve put her through so much.”
Many key events in Lee’s recent life—his relapse, coming out, and decision to retrain—cluster around 2019. In February of that year, he was in a car crash on the M40 when another vehicle hit him from behind.
“And I got out, and I was angry. ‘What the fuck was that, man?’ Then we looked behind his car, and a motorbike had crashed into the back of him, and there was a man lying in the road. It was fucking horrendous.”
Someone removed the man’s helmet, and someone else gave him mouth-to-mouth. Lee held the man’s hand. “And I’m shouting, ‘Don’t fucking die, man! Don’t die, come on!'” A few months earlier, Lee had kept a suicidal caller to his show talking, helping to save him. Here he was in the rescuer role again, or perhaps he felt he was riding shotgun with death. The man survived but sustained lifelong injuries.
“And, honestly, it did me in. I stammer when I talk about it. I thought, this is my fault. This is why I went into therapy—because I thought it was my fault… And that’s when my counsellor said, ‘Do you know you’re bisexual?’ And clearly I was bisexual.”
In June 2020, Talk Radio didn’t renew Lee’s contract. “Katherine said, ‘Don’t worry. You’re Iain Lee. You’ll get a phone call.’ And for the first time since 1998, the phone didn’t ring. The phone didn’t ring at all,” he says quietly.
Within a few months, he started counsellor training, during which a psychiatrist diagnosed him with ADHD and bipolar disorder. It’s a lot to learn in a short time, but Lee says, “It was great! It changed everything. I could start making sense of stuff.”
I can’t help wondering what Lee actually wants now. Besides Impostor Syndrome, he’s considered reviving The 11 O’Clock Show and is managing the band The Man From Delmonte. But “I’m just doing it because I think it’ll be fun,” he says. “It sounds corny, but I’ve got enough to pay the mortgage… I’ve never been in such an honest, open relationship… I get on so well with my boys… I’m more content than I’ve ever been.”
Iain Lee’s Impostor Syndrome is at the Stables, Milton Keynes, on 5 October, and the Rondo Theatre in Bath on 7 February 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
Of course Here is a list of FAQs about Iain Lees life and career based on his public disclosures about his chaotic past
General Beginner Questions
1 Who is Iain Lee
Iain Lee is a British television presenter radio host and comedian known for shows like The 11 OClock Show and his awardwinning talk radio work
2 What does he mean by his past was chaotic
He is referring to a period in his life marked by severe cocaine addiction mental health struggles a difficult career in comedy and a traumatic childhood involving abuse
3 What kind of abuse did Iain Lee experience
He has spoken about experiencing emotional and physical abuse during his childhood
4 Was Iain Lee addicted to drugs
Yes he has been very open about his past addiction to cocaine which he used heavily to cope with anxiety and the pressures of his career and personal life
5 What is a sex addict like his father identified as
Sex addiction is a compulsive need to engage in sexual acts often as a way to cope with underlying psychological issues like trauma or anxiety despite negative consequences to ones life relationships or mental health
Career Public Life
6 How did his addiction affect his comedy career
His addiction worsened his anxiety and paranoia making it difficult to function professionally It created a cycle where he used drugs to perform which then made his mental health worse
7 What was his onair breakdown
This refers to a very emotional and distressed phone call he made to the talkTV show The James OBrien Show in 2022 While experiencing a severe mental health crisis he called for help live on air which led to police being dispatched for a welfare check
8 Why was the onair breakdown such a big deal
It was a raw unscripted and public moment that highlighted the very real struggle of a mental health crisis It resonated with many people and sparked important conversations about how we handle such emergencies
9 Did his fathers behavior impact him
Yes significantly He has described his fathers sex addiction and the resulting family environment as chaotic confusing and a major source of childhood trauma that contributed to his own later struggles
Deeper Advanced Questions
