'Inbetweeners' star James Buckley accuses 'This Morning' of exploiting mental illness

Inbetweeners star James Buckley has accused This Morning of exploiting celebrities with mental health issues.

Speaking to the Daily Star, the actor revealed he turned down the opportunity to go on the ITV morning show and talk about his struggles with anxiety, because he thinks they have ‘baited’ people with mental health problems to make entertainment.

“I was asked to go on This Morning and daytime TV shows and chat shows to talk about it,” he said.

“I’m like, ‘I did talk about it. You didn’t report it properly and it made me even more anxious and depressed’.”

Read more: Inbetweeners star James Buckley: Struggles with anxiety make me scared to leave house

He continued: “The reason why I wasn’t comfortable talking about my anxiety on certain shows is that I thought the whole thing was sort of hypocritical.

“I think they’ve baited people that have probably had mental health problems and used that to make entertainment.”

Buckley admitted to usually enjoying the morning show, but was put going on it by Kerry Katona’s ‘gurning’ appearance.

“Whatever you’ve got to say about Kerry Katona, for example, she’s obviously got some demons, and they roll that clip out at every opportunity,” he said.

“I didn’t even see that live but I’ve seen it repeated on TV numerous times and that’s not fair.

Read more: James Buckley says The Inbetweeners reunion made him look like a 'f**king idiot'

“I don’t want to see anyone taken advantage of like that. How she got to the point where they were like, ‘Yeah you can go on. You’re fine’. It’s really, really unfair and it does not help the problem at all. To be used like that would be horrific and would make you go even more insane.”

Speaking on his Complete Load of Podcast, Buckley said he hopes things will change.

“I think things are changing and sometime in the near future there would be someone responsible there going, ‘For your own health we can’t have you on live television right now,” he said.

“We want to make you feel better because I’m another human being and I don’t want to see someone else suffer in this way’.

“Instead of just doing the complete opposite and going, ‘Right, this will be some ratings’.”