Did Liz Truss fake her relatives’ deaths to avoid TV appearances?

Needless to say, the soon-to-be-former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the infamous Liz Truss, is currently hogging the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Whether it is for setting a record by resigning after just 44 days in the office or because of the mind-boggling truth that she has been defeated by a lettuce, Truss remains the topic of hot debates. And as if the existing topics weren’t enough to keep the discussion going, it has now been claimed that she used to fake her relatives’ death to ditch media appearances. 

For those who don’t know, Truss held the position of Justice Secretary and lord chancellor from July 2016 to June 2017. If we were to believe the words of her former aide, Kirsty Buchanan — a former political journalist who worked for her when Truss was Justice Secretary — she absolutely abhorred doing media appearances. So, in order to avoid them, Truss had her advisors cook up fake stories of her family members dying as excuses.

“She didn’t like the media, so we used to spend quite a lot of time making up excuses and killing off minor members of her family so she didn’t have to go on Question Time,” Buchanan shared while speaking on the Whitehall Sources podcast (via Deadline).  “Only minor people like aunts and cousins and things — I’m not talking about major members of the family.”

But the treasure stock of lies ultimately ran out — after all, there are only so many fake relatives a person can have and give imaginary deaths — and according to Buchanan, this forced Truss to finally appear on the BBC’s flagship politics show. 

Was it a fear of public speaking? Perhaps. Truss has often been criticized for her speaking skills, which have been called everything from wooden and banal to lacking the ability to emotionally connect. But she reportedly had another reason to avoid the show like the plague. 

As Buchanan tells it, Truss was in for a rude surprise when she attended Question Time. According to the ex-aide, she wasn’t much bothered by who was on the panel with her as long as a certain person — whom Buchanan refused to name — was not present on it. But lo and behold, when she finally appeared on the show, this person was also present. 

“I don’t know if they did it on purpose because he’s a long-time baiter of hers,” said Buchanan. 

This recent claim seems like a dwarf in the presence of the mountain of controversies Truss has been surrounded by ever since she became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the wake of Boris Johnson’s resignation. Her super-short term of 44 days in the PM’s office saw her becoming a massively criticized leader for her problematic decisions which include initiating a mini-budget that more or less drilled a hole in the foundation of the British economy. This in turn forced her to sack Kwasi Kwarteng, her closest political ally and chancellor. 

Though Truss has formally resigned, she will continue to retain the role up until Oct. 28, when a successor will be finally revealed.