Hazard Ratio is a reader-supported Substack. Consider backing my work and becoming a paid subscriber today.
Jason Arday, who resigned from his professorship at Cambridge last week amid a torrent of accusations of plagiarism and serial fabulism, in 2012 was showered with prizes for his lies about his charity fundraising by the television show Surprise Surprise.
In a clip from the ITV show, which I obtained and which is posted above, Mr. Arday sits in a fit of bashfulness as his then-partner (later wife, and then ex-wife) Debbie McKenzie sings his praises. She recounts the story of his triumphing over adversity that he would continue to tell until his world came crashing down last month: that he had severe autism, which led to major developmental delays, and that he’d come out of it and become a thriving academic and a master fundraiser for charity.
Neither Arday nor ITV returned my request for comment.
The clip from the show is one of the earliest documented examples available of the myth Mr. Arday spun around himself. Other such documentation dates back another two years, to 2010, when Mr. Arday claimed to have run 30 marathons in 35 days. According to the January 2026 proof of his memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things, which Simon & Schuster will publish in the United States tomorrow, two PR agents, David Tutin and Mick Thorburg, approached him in 2010 and asked to publicize his marathon challenge. Messrs. Tutin and Thorburg, who for reasons unknown are given pseudonyms in the final U.K. edition of Mr. Arday’s memoir, arranged for a big to-do in Piccadilly Circus when Mr. Arday asserted that he had finished his final marathon. (I was unable to reach the two men.)
A local news article at the time accurately reported that Mr. Arday, then 25, had raised about £6,000 for charity through his running, and yet credulously reported that he had raised £100,000 since he was 17.
Last month, Mr. Arday admitted to The Times that his recent claims that he had raised £5.5 million across his adult life were not correct. He instead claimed that he had raised money as a part of larger teams. But when The Guardian asked him to name some of the team members, he demurred, claiming to be under NDAs.
(A personal aside: The Times appears to have lifted liberally from my reporting on Substack and for the without crediting me, in an article published Saturday—an ironic offense given what we’re all writing about. I wrote about this on X. I have not heard back from The Times.)
Surprise Surprise was a popular British variety show that ran from 1984 to 2001 and again from 2012 to 2015. It was a jaunty blend of feel-good and stunt television that did things like track down long-lost relatives and grant wishes to people going through hard times.
In the clip I obtained, the host, Mark Wright, approached Mr. Arday and Ms. McKenzie in the studio audience. Ms. McKenzie, who had been with since his teens and is the mother of his two children, recalled his awe-inspiring story. She said: “Jason’s just an amazing guy. He has epilepsy. He learned how to speak when he was 11, and he couldn’t read or write until he was 16.”
This is remarkable, because Mr. Arday has long claimed, including in his memoir, that he learned to read and write at age 18. And yet he did not correct Ms. McKenzie during the show, which aired in November 2012 but was apparently taped previously.
According to Mr. Arday’s memoir, he met Ms. McKenzie at age 18. She became instrumental in his then starting to read and write. The following year, he writes in his book (for which he required a coauthor), he had “just about learned to read and write, albeit at the level of a five-year-old.” The year after that, he started college, he asserts in his book.
Ms. McKenzie continued in the TV-show clip: “And he found school quite challenging and quite tough. But he always was so grateful to the people that helped him along the way. So he decided to give back, and he has dedicated the past 10 years to fundraising for people who are in need. And so this has been alongside going to college, going to uni, getting a master’s, becoming a uni lecturer.”
Then came the signature achievement. “Just the age of 27, he has raised almost £250,000 for charity,” Ms. McKenzie said in the clip.
This claim was a lie, we now know; although we don’t know what Ms. McKenzie knew at the time. (I was unable to reach her.) But that did not stop Mr. Arday from welcoming adulation on TV and receiving valuable prizes—an exchange which was arguably fraudulent on his part.
Ms. McKenzie continued, asserting: “He ran 30 marathons in 35 days, which is crazy.”
Asked by by Mr. Wright why he engaged in this fantastic feat, Mr. Arday said, “Sheer stupidity!”
Mr. Wright wasn’t having that. “It’s just generosity and a kind heart,” he said. “That’s what it is.”
Continuing to spin the web for the cameras, Mr. Arday said, “There’s people that do amazing things day in, day out. And I’m just fortunate enough that I’m surrounded by people that appreciate it. So I’m very fortunate.”
Mr. Wright, not noticing that Mr. Arday had just said he was fortunate to have people appreciate him (for doing things he lied about), said, “Well, what an amazing attitude to have.”
Mr. Wright said the show wanted to do something nice for him in return.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.