Richard Ayoade, the star of Travel Man, shares an unexpected familial link with former GB News presenter Laurence Fox. The comedian and IT Crowd actor is married to Lydia, Laurence’s sister, making them brothers-in-law.

Despite their current amicable relationship, Richard, 46, and Laurence, 45, have had their share of disagreements. In a Sunday Times interview, Laurence revealed a temporary falling out with Richard following his controversial appearance on Question Time in 2020.

During the political chat show, Laurence labelled a woman of colour as racist after she referred to him as a “white privileged male”. Prior to this, he had dismissed the Meghan Markle race controversy as “boring”, asserting: “It’s not racism. We’re the most tolerant lovely country in Europe.”

His remarks sparked widespread criticism on social media and led to the Race Equality Committee of the actors’ union Equity branding him “a disgrace to our industry”.

Laurence, who was once married to Billie Piper, admitted that these events caused a rift between him and a “furious” Richard. He also shared how he pleaded for Richard’s support during the height of the backlash, only for the comedian to respond: “was like what, [support you] on Twitter? It’s not real. It doesn’t exist, it’s mad. Stay away from it all. You know who I am and I know who you are”, reports OK!.

Richard, of Nigerian descent, challenged Laurence, stating: “You have never encountered racism,” to which the actor retorted: “Yeah, of course I have. I’ve encountered racism from black people towards me, when I was working in Kenya [as a safari driver] for seven months. It’s the way you’re spoken to – racism can be deferential.”

Laurence later clarified during the interview that he’s “not denying privilege and I’m not denying racism”.

Despite Richard and Lydia typically hosting family lunches every Sunday, Laurence admitted: “There were a couple of weekends I didn’t go.”