...but her kids thought it was cool

She has long been a running joke in Alan Partridge's life - but now Sue Cook has complained that the repeated references to her are 'a bit of a pain in the neck'.

The veteran TV presenter is particularly irked at getting a reputation for unreliability  after a 1997 episode of I'm Alan Partridge revolved around her pulling out of an 'afternoon with...' session with Steve Coogan's struggling Norfolk DJ.

‘It’s a bit of a pain in the neck, to be honest,' the 77-year-old told The Peter Purves Podcast. 'Because people are always saying, "Oh, Sue Cook’s pulled out". So people think that I’m the sort of person who pulls out of things.

'If they don’t understand the reference, they wonder why they keep seeing things about me pulling out of things.’

However, the former Crimewatch host admitted that being a perpetually unseen pal of Partridge's has its upsides.

She added: 'My kids thought I was dead cool. We were sitting at home on the sofa watching Alan Partridge, and to our amazement suddenly he started talking about me. And the kids, because I didn’t really tell the kids much about my job – I didn’t bring my job home much really when they were young, and so they didn’t really know that I was a thing or well-known at all, so when I came up in Alan Partridge they decided I was cool!’

The character also references Cook several times in his fictional biographies, describing in The Big Beacon how he had ‘developed incredibly strong feelings towards’ her.

She has previously said she found Coogan’s obsession ‘bizarre’ adding: ‘I am in his book, and he sent it to me with a letter. I haven’t read it properly, but you look at the index, and it says Sue Cook page 9, 17, 22, 32, 34 etcetera…’

Coogan conducted an interview with Vue magazine while promoting the Alan Partridge movie Alpha Papa in 2013,when he said: ‘Sue and I go way back. She’s a straight-talker – she’ll really go to town on you if you displease her. I mean, she’ll call you all the names under the sun. I’ve seen her reduce John Stapleton to tears more than once, but it’s only because she cares. It’s funny that she’s called Sue Cook – she can’t cook, but she will sue.’

Cook's comments to 87-year-old Purves have been reported in today's Mail on Sunday.

Published: 2 Aug 2026