Maureen Lipman reignites feud with ‘potty-mouthed controversialist’ Miriam Margolyes
Lipman disagrees with Margolyes' comments 'comparing Israelis to Nazis'.
Dame Maureen Lipman has called Miriam Margolyes a ‘potty-mouthed controversialist and self-publicist’ over her outspoken views on the war in Gaza.
The Coronation Street star has hit out at Margolyes after the Call the Midwife actress’s ongoing public comments criticising Israel’s actions in the conflict as ‘vicious’ and ‘genocidal’.
In April, Harry Potter star Margolyes urged Jewish people to ‘shout, beg, scream for a ceasefire’ in Gaza as the death toll rose and aid agency UNRWA USA said the territory was facing a ‘man-made famine’.
She said that Israel’s actions in the Gaza war had left her ‘so ashamed of Israel’ in a video released via the Jewish Council of Australia.
‘To me, it seems as if Hitler has won. He’s changed us Jews from being compassionate and caring and do unto others as you would have them do unto you into this vicious, genocidal nationalist nation, pursuing and killing women and children,’ she remarked.
Margolyes has since made similar comments as she continues to speak out about the ongoing conflict, telling The Big Issue in July: ‘I feel it particularly because I am Jewish – because I know how much wickedness and cruelty were meted out to Jews in my lifetime.
The Harry Potter actress has previously declared ‘Hitler has won’ and called Israel a ‘vicious, genocidal nationalist nation’ (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock) Corrie icon Dame Maureen dismissed Margolyes’ outspoken views, calling her ‘a shock jock’ and a ‘potty-mouthed controversialist’ (Picture: Getty)‘I was born in ‘41 at the height of the Holocaust and I cannot bear to think that my people are doing exactly the same thing to another nation – and the nation they are doing it, to the Palestinian nation, were not responsible for the Holocaust and nothing to do with it.’
Saying that her ‘heart is broken’, she continued: ‘The terrible thing I have to face is that Hitler won. He changed us. He made us like him.’
But Dame Maureen, who is also Jewish, criticised Margolyes’ stance in a new column for The Spectator.
She said she had recently been in email correspondence with ‘another Jewish celebrity’ who ‘spoke out with horror’ about the Israeli Defence Force’s actions in Gaza.
She was writing for her column in The Spectator, praising another Jewish celebrity’s ‘horror’ over the IDF’s actions (Picture: Getty)‘At least her opinion is thought-through, measured and civil,’ Dame Maureen wrote.
‘Miriam Margolyes, on the other hand, is a shock jock, a potty-mouthed controversialist and self-publicist, so I’m uninterested in her latest PR splash comparing Israelis to Nazis and the Gazan war to the Holocaust.’
Margolyes responded to the remarks on Thursday, taking to her Facebook page with a photo of the column captioned: ‘From Dame Maureen Lipman (alas!)’
Just days earlier she had shared her public congratulations there to Dame Maureen on the announcement of her marriage to partner David Turner, co-founder of the LA Fitness gym chain.
But it’s not the first time they have fallen out over Gaza, with Margolyes telling Saga Magazine in July 2024: ‘Jewish people regard me with loathing, as someone who betrayed my nation and aligned myself with the Devil.
Margolyes, who shared Dame Maureen’s column on social media with the comment ‘alas’, has previously spoken about her friend’s issues with her remarks (Picture: Simon Schluter/Fairfax Media via Getty Images via Getty) Follow Metro on WhatsApp to be the first to get all the latest newsFollow us to receive the latest news updates from Metro (Picture: Getty Images)
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‘That is also the opinion of my erstwhile friend Dame Maureen Lipman, who is horrified by my attitude.’
Margolyes has also faced backlash for her remarks from others, with the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) calling her comments ‘racist bilge’ and declaring: ‘The fact that she was born Jewish does not give her a licence to use her immense platform to spread anti-Jewish venom.’
The organisation also called for her to be stripped of both her OBE and Bafta, which she won for her performance in 1993’s The Age of Innocence.
But Margolyes has also received lots of support on social media with people thanking her for continuing to share her views.
‘I like Miriam’s empathetic opinionating,’ commented one fan underneath her Facebook post.
Margolyes has recently shared that her comments have cost her friendships and relationships, even with family members.
She’s also been upfront about the family members and friends she’s lost due to what she’s said being ‘appalling’ them (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock)‘No friends have come back. I doubt whether I’ve changed anyone’s minds and some of the people that I’ve lost are people that I really loved and cared about, and who welcomed me into their homes and are my relatives,’ she revealed on the Off Air with Jane & Fi podcast earlier this month.
Noting the backlash to her insistence that ‘we have become Nazis because the treatment of the Palestinians’ and that ‘Hitler has won’, she added: ‘I think that phrase disgusted and appalled them, those who disagree.
‘And they feel that I have betrayed my people, and I have not betrayed my people. It is they who have betrayed the tenets of Judaism, which were always full of compassion.’
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