Hugh Laurie revealed he was a little tipsy while getting into a social media feud over one freelance journalist’s critiques of his famous Fox medical series “House.”
Although the acclaimed procedural drama first premiered over 20 years ago, its star found himself in a feud with a fan over its intentionally repetitive storylines.
Janet Murray bemoaned that the series got eight seasons of a repetitive formula. Laurie weighed in publicly on the critique garnering over 8 million views on X. He defended the series’ procedural format and the writers behind it.
Laurie compared the repetitive nature of the series to composer Johann Sebastian Bach’s 30 Goldberg variations of the same chord structure and Frida Kahlo’s self portraits. Murray leaned into the commentary but did say that his comments led to some “fairly horrific trolling.”
“It turns out House fans are even more abusive than trans activists (and that’s saying something),” Murray wrote.
Laurie apologized to the freelance journalist Monday afternoon, saying the negative feedback from “House” fans was “not at all the plan.”
I’m sorry if people have been having a go at you because of my tweet. Not at all the plan. I was very slightly drunk and already upset about something that had nothing to do with you. If it’s any comfort, I got it in the neck too. I’m a thin-skinned twat, apparently, even…
— Hugh Laurie (@hughlaurie) June 8, 2026
“I’m sorry if people have been having a go at you because of my tweet,” he wrote Monday. I was very slightly drunk and already upset about something that had nothing to do with you.”
“I’m a thin-skinned twat, apparently, even though it wasn’t my skin. I was sticking up for the writers who I adored,” he continued. “Obviously I shouldn’t have cited Bach/Kahlo/Moore – asking for trouble – and would have done better to go for the 10,000 blues songs written around the same 12 bar chord structure. I’ve listened to most of them and will keep doing so. Because we love what we love.”
The actor was responding to a larger op-ed Murray had written about the debacle for UnHerd titled, “What I learnt from my online fight with Hugh Laurie.”
“Because while his witty riposte was genuinely amusing, one point I make in the piece is that it was shared with his 1.2 million followers on X. I have around 38,000,” Murray wrote on X Monday. “That creates something of an imbalance — particularly given that the responses to my original post were overwhelmingly warm-hearted and affectionate towards the show.”
“House” was created by David Shore and ran for eight seasons on Fox.
