Millions are wishing one young girl a happy birthday after her ruined surprise party went viral on British social media.
A BBC meteorologist made an accidental on-air gaffe Friday when she revealed that her family was planning a surprise birthday party for her niece.
The blunder occurred when weather forecaster Kawser Quamer was asked by host Annabel Tiffin at the end of the broadcast if she had any plans lined up for the weekend.
“What have you got for the weekend, anything exciting,” Tiffin, 55, asked at the end of the program which broadcasts to the UK’s Northwest region.
“My niece’s surprise birthday party,” Quamer, 44, responds immediately without thinking.
That’s lovely,” Tiffin responds before adding, “Not a surprise if she’s watching this!”
Realizing what her co-worker meant, Quamer clapped her hands to her mouth in shock.
“Goodness me. I’ve spoilt it,” she shrieked before waving her hand up and down and telling viewers to “shhh!”
The accident has since gone viral online.
“Don’t worry @KawserQuamer there’s only several hundred thousand watching live on TV and millions more have seen it here on X,” the network posted on X (formerly Twitter).
“We do need to know whether the party went OK! I don’t think I’ve laughed so much in ages, bless you Kawser,” laughed a second user.
“We were watching it last night. Gave us a great hoot. Styled it out well. Happy birthday to your niece,” a third user said.
“I’ve watched this multiple times now. It gets funnier every time,” posted another user.
This is not the first time a BBC anchor has gone viral for an on-air snafu.
In December 2023, Maryam Moshiri went viral after the anchor was caught giving the middle finger right at the live camera in a now-viral clip.
The incident happened right as Moshiri was set to deliver the noontime news.
As the traditional BBC countdown descended to zero, the screen transitioned to Moshiri with her head tilted, eyes wide open, bearing a large smirk and displaying the unmistakable gesture.
It took Moshiri a millisecond to realize what had happened before beginning her segment.
Moshiri said Thursday she was only joking around with the team behind the camera and it was meant to be a private joke, and wasn’t intended to cause any harm.
“I was pretending to count down as the director was counting me down from 10-0 including the fingers to show the number. So from 10 fingers held up to one,” she said in a post to X. “When we got to 1 I turned my finger around as a joke and did not realize that this would be caught on camera.”
Moshiri apologized for the incident, saying, “I’m so sorry it went out on air! It was not my intention for this to happen and I’m sorry if I offended or upset anyone. I wasn’t ‘flipping the bird’ at viewers or even a person really.”
