Rory Stewart: 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.

Rory Stewart

Recorded said elsewhere, not written here

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

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

Others on this question

View all 122 →

Toby Stephens

A review of Phèdre said – because I was quite large at the time – Toby Stephens’s Hippolytus needs to get on a StairMaster.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 June 2026 source ↗

Bruno Tonioli Italian choreographer

Growing up as a gay boy in a small town, you get used to people saying bad things pretty quickly.

Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 April 2023 source ↗

Andrew O’Hagan

Somebody once told me I was the spitting image of David Cameron.

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 July 2026 source ↗

Sarah Hadland

“You’ll never, ever work.” When you are young and full of hopes and dreams it’s devastating. I am just grateful that I thought: “Well, I’m going to try.”

Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 20 December 2025 source ↗