The Paris Olympics opening ceremony sparked controversy last week when it unintentionally featured a parody of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper starring drag queens and dancers lining a large table.
While artistic director Thomas Jolly has said da Vinci’s 15th-century painting was not his inspiration for the act, some have accused it of mocking the biblical scene.
The French Catholic Church said it “included scenes of derision and mockery of Christianity.”
And Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the highest-ranking Catholic official in Malta, contacted France's ambassador to Malta to express his “distress and great disappointment at the insult”.
Richard Madeley has now joined the backlash, saying the act was “insulting to Christians” and questioning whether another religion would have been “mocked” in the same way.
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The Good Morning Britain presenter, 68, wrote in his new column for the Daily Express: “I’m not a Christian; sadly I don’t believe in God (sadly, because I realise it would be a great comfort) but nevertheless I was offended by the drag queen parody of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper during the Olympics opening ceremony.
“It was just rude. I don’t mean the drag queens themselves – drag is so mainstream now, it’s boring – but why gratuitously insult millions of watching Christians who up to that moment were enjoying the ceremony?
“Mocking Christians is easy. They don’t punch back. So there was nothing brave about the parody.
“But mocking another religion? Islam, say? They wouldn’t dare.”
In the days following the opening ceremony, Paris 2024 organisers issued an apology to those who were offended.
Spokesperson Anne Descamps told a press conference on Sunday: “Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group.
“[The opening ceremony] tried to celebrate community tolerance. We believe this ambition was achieved. If people have taken any offence we are really sorry.”
Thomas Jolly, the artistic director behind the opening ceremony, said he did not intend “to be subversive”, “mock” or “shock”.
He said: “We wanted to talk about diversity. Diversity means being together. We wanted to include everyone, as simple as that.”
He added that he had intended for it to depict a pagan feast linked to the gods of Olympus.
