Comic and former Great British Baking Show host Sue Perkins has spoken out after making headlines for accidentally misgendering House of the Dragon star Emma D'Arcy.
Perkins interviewed the stars of the show on the red carpet of its recent season two premiere party in London, and referred to D'Arcy, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, as "she" and "her."
After receiving criticism on X, formerly Twitter, Perkins, who is a lesbian, spoke out to apologize for the mistake and talk about why it "matters" in a tweet.
Perkins tweeted:
"It was a sh*tty mistake. Had loads of stuff going on in my earpiece and so wasn't as focused as I should have been."
"No excuses though. These things matter and I feel terrible about it."
"Am a massive fan of their work and would never want to be disrespectful."
The mistake occurred while Perkins was speaking with D'Arcy costar Matt Smith, during which she told Smith what D'Arcy had said to her about him during an interview.
She told Smith:
“I was talking to Emma and she was saying… she was talking about how amazing that end scene was. She gave you all the credit."
Smith was widely praised for the skillful way he handled the gaffe, simply using the correct pronouns for D'Arcy in his response.
In response to her apology, Perkins received a fair amount of criticism from conservatives, transphobes, TERFs and gender-critical activists who insisted nonbinary identities aren't real.
But many also praised Perkins' response, and held it up as a model for how to take accountability for making mistakes when it comes to LGBTQ+ identities.
Perkins also told another X user she plans to apologize to D'Arcy personally as well.
House of the Dragon season two premieres June 16.
