Loose Women’s Carol McGiffin admits to ‘dining and dashing’ saying ‘it was hilarious and quite exhilarating’
LOOSE Women’s Carol McGiffin has admitted to ‘dining and dashing’ during a trip to Pizza Hut in her youth.
Carol, 64, recounted a “hilarious and quite exhilarating” time in the 80s when she and her sister accidentally fled from the fast food chain without paying
Writing for Best magazine, she explained: “I was just a very naughty young whippersnapper, when my sister and I scarpered from Pizza Hut back in the early Eighties.
“It wasn’t planned, she thought I’d paid, and I thought she had! When we realised neither of us had, we had a quick, ‘Do we go back?’ discussion before legging it at high speed.
“I know, it wasn’t big or clever, but at the time we thought it hilarious and quite exhilarating. I’ve never done it since and I still feel quite bad about it.”
Today, however, Carol believes that ‘dining and dashing’ has become a calculated scheme.
She fumed: “Now it’s become a kind of sport where people – or lowlife scumbags as I prefer to call them – use carefully pre-prepared scams to deceive restaurant staff to get out of paying.
“As a result, and as with shoplifting, hardly anyone gets prosecuted, even though some restaurants do all they can to expose the thieves using CCTV and social media.”
The presenter also warned that the act could lead to higher prices and increased suspicion from other customers.
The broadcaster officially left the ITV daytime show last summer following a contract dispute.
While she still has a soft spot for former co-stars like Denise Welch and Kaye Adams, Carol is less enthusiastic about the show itself.
She bluntly told Woman’s Own recently: “I don’t regret leaving, I don’t fit in there anymore.”
It follows another rebuke back in April, when she promoted her podcast on social media.
Beside an image of her smiling and looking happy in front of a microphone with headphones on, she wrote: “Apparently, some people are missing me.
“Not because I haven’t been on here for ages but because I’m not on that daytime ITV show I used to do, Loose Women.”
Carol continued: “Sadly that little job isn’t coming back but I’m not totally retired yet! I’m still doing this podcast which is called ‘What’s Your Problem With Nick Abbot and Carol McGiffin?’ and it’s available on most podcast outlets.”
She was last seen on Loose Women in May last year, and later slammed the series for “shoving woke news down viewers’ throats”.
Her divisive views over the handling of coronavirus were initially rumoured to be the reason behind her sharp and hasty exit.
However, she later told Best Magazine it was down to a classic contract dispute, writing in her weekly column that the “stress” of the negotiations was too much.
She penned: “The problem was, ITV were insisting, for the first time since I went back in 2018, that if I wanted to carry on doing the show, I would have to sign a contract that was totally unjust and unworkable for me, so I had to say no thanks.
“And I know it looks like I’ve thrown my toys out of the pram, but the whole saga was affecting my health.”