The BBC’s ‘Doctor Who’ Secrecy Stopped It From Defending Millie Gibson From Tabloid Reports

Millie Gibson has spoken out about being unable to respond to a series of reports made by British tabloids about her time on Doctor Who—out of concerns from the BBC that doing so could potentially jeopardize revealing then-upcoming storylines from the show.

Speaking to the I Paper, Gibson touched on a series of reports from British newspapers in 2023 that claimed that she had been dismissed from the series before she had even debuted as the Doctor’s then-latest companion, Ruby Sunday, alleging that the then-19-year-old star behaved like a “diva” on set.

Gibson’s first full season of Doctor Who wouldn’t premiere until spring 2024, at the climax of which Ruby chose to leave the TARDIS behind to spend time with her family, but she would continue to be a part of the Doctor’s life back on Earth by joining up with UNIT. By that point, however, set pictures and early reporting had confirmed that Andor star Varada Sethu had joined the series as its next companion, Belinda Chandra, and it wouldn’t be officially revealed by the BBC until April 2024, a month before Gibson’s debut season began, that she would continue to appear in the following season in 2025, in an irregular capacity alongside Ncuti Gatwa and Sethu.

All that time, however, the BBC never formally acknowledged or denied the reports, leaving fans confused and Gibson at the mercy of public opinion even before she’d yet to really step foot out of the TARDIS. “I couldn’t be like, ‘It’s a lie!’ [because] they’d be like, ‘Well, that’s spoilers,’” Gibson told the I Paper. “It was quite hard to stand up for myself without ruining the show. I was like, ‘Oh, this is horrific because it just looks like it’s true.’”

“Oh, it was awful. What was frustrating was the amount of people that were like, ‘Oh, sorry, this has happened mate,’” Gibson continued, “and I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s not [happened], but thank you.’”

Without the BBC publicly defending her, Gibson turned to her co-star in Gatwa for advice on how to deal with the scrutiny. “He’s had his time with that,” Gibson added, “and it’s just about just being able to try and shut it out.”

Is a Doctor Who spoiler worth keeping if it means an actress as young as Gibson is left defenseless from incorrect reporting? Perhaps the formal announcement of her part in season two, alongside Sethu’s arrival, was seen by the BBC as a response to the allegations. But it’s not like the BBC doesn’t respond to reports it considers factually incorrect, and all this still created more confusion that could have possibly been worth it without some kind of pushback to the rumors, which could’ve easily been done while still preserving Ruby’s wider arc on the show.

But then again, the BBC does seem to love creating confusion over Doctor Who for little reason as of late.

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