James O'Brien says claim that radio show is harder than manual labour was 'p*** take'

James O'Brien said that his job is "harder than manual labor" but said later that it was only a "p***-take".

On Friday, O'Brien was met with backlash after claiming that hosting his radio show on LBC was "more exhausting" than manual labor.

"I'm going to say something to you now, and you may not like it. I think this job is harder than manual labor," O'Brien said Friday.

The 50-year-old radio host compared his job to "flying an airplane without autopilot" or "being air traffic controller".

"I'm not just doing this for fun or for provocations, I honestly think this job is more exhausting." He added.

Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Part of O'Brien's job as host of LBC is to deliver news, create debate, and answer calls from listeners. His show airs from 10am to 1pm on LBC.

He explained that because his job requires so much energy and continuous thoughtful responses, it would be difficult to do for eight hours a day.

Knowing his hot take was going to spark debate online, O'Brien got ahead of himself by predicting people would respond angrily to his claim without having fully watched his show.

The show decided to take the clip and posted it online, seemingly in hopes of getting a rise from other people.

"What you'll get in the replies to that is people who haven't been listening to the program, in fact you'll probably get people who haven't even bothered to watch the clip, they'll just be responding to the headline," O'Brien said.

"If you want to laugh at the raging of ignoramuses then go and have a look at that."

Unsurprisingly, people responded angrily to O'Brien's claim.

Later on, O'Brien tweeted mocking people who responded angrily to his take by claiming it was a "p***-take" that people used to get attention.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.