Richard O'Brien, former host of cult 90s TV gameshow, The Crystal Maze, today sensationally broke a 20-year silence to expose one of the show's most enduring secrets.
In an interview with The Guardian, O'Brien has finally admitted that there were no gold bits of paper on that end bit of the show, ending years of debate as to why contestants were too hopeless to ever win anything.
O'Brien confessed: "The contestants would be flapping their arms frantically, unable to figure out why they could only ever collect silver paper. I was in pieces; it was hysterical.
"But I had to hold it together for the good of the show."
In the same interview, O'Brien denied suggestions The Crystal Maze's producers made sure no competent human being ever made it onto the show.
"There was no bias involved in the screening process", O'Brien told the paper.
"But anybody who had confessed to a phobia of crystals did get something of a leg-up."
"I was in pieces. It was hysterical." Crystal Maze fraudster Richard O'Brien
Responding to the revelation, Professor James Marks, head of the Faculty of Light Entertainment at Bournemouth University, said: "I knew it. I bl**dy knew it."
The news is a further blow to the integrity of British broadcasting, after last week's 'Hartgate' scandal.
The BBC is facing calls for an independent inquiry after it admitted that paintings submitted to 'The Gallery' on Tony Hart's much-loved Take Hart show of the 1970s and 80s, were created not by children but by sex offenders incarcerated in Wakefield Prison.
