Siobhán McSweeney: What is the harshest thing anyone has said to you?

The question

What is the harshest thing anyone has said to you?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Siobhán McSweeney

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

“Sorry, I don’t mean to insult you, but did you know you look a bit like that actress Siobhán McSweeney?”

The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 December 2023 source ↗

Others on this question

View all 122 →

Rory Stewart

On X, I am regularly called a traitor, a fraud, a grifter, a weakling, a narcissist, a coward and a child molester.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 17 January 2026 source ↗

Jon Snow

“You pinko!” by a Tory minister signing off at the end of an interview with me during the EU referendum campaign.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 March 2024 source ↗

Hamza Yassin

There’s a tweet somewhere saying, “If you like Africa so much, why don’t you go back there.” It was because I dedicated one of my dances to my three mothers – Mother Africa, Mother Nature and my mother.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 September 2023 source ↗

Indira Varma

Go back to where you came from.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 April 2024 source ↗