Boris Johnson has been a major player in British politics for many years now. He served as the mayor of London between 2008 and 2016. After that, he became the foreign secretary of state. And in 2019, he became the Prime Minister, making him the most public face of England other than Queen Elizabeth.
That’s all well and good except for one thing: Johnson is constantly walking through a minefield of scandals. And he can’t open his mouth without sticking his foot in there. Oh, and when he does try to do something positive and inspirational, he almost always manages to make things worse.
Don’t believe it? We’ve assembled the most embarrassing Boris Johnson moments ever captured on camera. And for some of these moments, you truly have to see them to believe them!
Stuck on a zip line
Boris Johnson is never afraid to make a spectacle of himself, and he took it to the next level in 2012. That’s when he tried to zip line across London’s Victoria Park in order to promote the Olympics. To top it off, he waved two Union flags the entire time.
If this had gone without a hitch, Johnson may have succeeded in promoting the Olympics. Unfortunately, he got stuck on the zip line and was left hanging 65 feet from the end of the line. Johnson had to stay calm and keep his cool while requesting a rope to get safely to the ground!
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Falling into the river
Make no mistake: Boris Johnson has been embarrassing on many occasions as he engaged in selfish and self-aggrandizing actions. However, even when Johnson tries to do the right thing, he ends up making a splash in the worst possible way.
For example, back in 2009, Johnson was campaigning to get more people to volunteer. In order to be a role model, he was helping take out litter and clutters of unwanted plants in River Pool in Lewisham. Sadly, he ended up taking a tumble directly into the water!
A soaked Johnson tried to recover his dignity by joking that he had made the “ultimate sacrifice” in order to promote volunteerism. Unfortunately, joking that getting a bit wet was a major sacrifice ended up making Johnson look that much worse.
Appearing on Eastenders
For better or for worse, Donald Trump helped legitimize having a world leader with a history of weird television appearances. Before that, it was considered quite embarrassing. And that’s what makes this Eastenders clip so cringeworthy!
Johnson appeared on the show in 2009, when he was in his second year as Mayor of London. Fittingly enough, Johnson simply plays himself as he meets Peggy Mitchell (played by the incomparable Barbara Mitchell). At the time, this caused a bit of drama because Kensington’s former mayor had tried and failed to bring attention to a recycling program on this soap program.
As Johnson rose in political prominence, though, this clip helped highlight how much he needed to have the eyes of the world on him.
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Tackling a schoolboy
Back in 2015, Johnson was still the Mayor of London. That meant sometimes engaging in international politics, and that’s how Johnson found himself playing in a casual rugby game over in Tokyo.
On paper, this sounds simple enough. The English are experts at rugby, so how bad could this go? As it turns out, the answer is “pretty darn bad!”
That’s because Johnson’s opponents were Japanese schoolchildren. And at one point during the game, a clearly out-of-shape Johnson ended up barreling directly into Toki Sekiguchi, one of the local students. Sekiguchi seemingly took it in stride but was clearly in pain, and the world shook its head at London’s mayor injuring a small child.
Struggling with Christmas lights
Boris Johnson may be a British icon, but in this clip, he has something in common with one of our favorite fictional American icons, Clark Griswold. And just like Clark in National Lampoon’s Christmas vacation, Johnson is struggling to turn on some pesky Christmas lights!
In this clip from December 2021, the lights eventually turn on after multiple tries. But you can hear the palpable disappointment after the countdown as these children wait for Johnson to get the job done. Then again, watching their leader struggle to do something simple may be the perfect introduction to politics for these kids.
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Roasted on David Letterman
Every now and then, Boris Johnson walks right into a roast. And that’s exactly what happened when he appeared on David Letterman in 2012.
In short, Letterman took the gloves off with cracks about Johnson’s hair and other qualities. Johnson tries to fire back with jokes about Americans, including a joke about Americans being fat that, coming from Johnson, seems a bit hypocritical.
Perhaps the weirdest part of this interview is when Johnson dismisses his own chances of ever becoming Prime Minister before joking that it could happen in the same way that he could become president of the United States. Not only did Johnson eventually become PM, but his antics as PM were often compared to an unlikely presidential candidate who did manage to get elected: Donald Trump!
Offering reporters tea instead of answers
Modern politicians are a lot like modern celebrities. And one thing that both groups often do is make apologies for offensive statements. Unfortunately, Johnson never got that memo.
In August 2018, Boris Johnson was accused of Islamophobia for a Telegraph column he wrote in which he compared Muslim women in burkas to “bank robbers” and “letter boxes” (via BBC). Shortly after his column was published, reporters gathered outside his reporters Oxfordshire home. Bizarrely, Johnson approaches them with mugs of tea.
In this clip, a reporter tries to ask if Johnson has any comment on his offensive comparison. But Johnson keeps rebuking her and says, “I have nothing to say about this matter except to offer you some tea.” He clearly wants to defuse the situation, but coming out looking like a disheveled mess and being avoidant about the whole thing only makes matters worse.
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Fighting mad during an investigation
Remember when we compared Boris Johnson to Donald Trump? Well, there are two more things they have in common: getting investigated and getting very angry about it!
In this clip from April 2021, Johnson is responding to an investigation into his home refurbishments. Basically, he spent way more on the renovation than he gets as an annual grant, causing some to wonder if he was misusing government money for personal matters. Johnson later claimed he paid for the extra out of his own pocket, and in this clip, he is absolutely fighting mad over the investigation.