Gold Derby apologized Saturday and removed a video interview with “Outlander” stars Caitríona Balfe and Sam Heughan after the outlet misquoted Balfe and made it appear that she referred to a town in Scotland as “an armpit.”
The awards website credited the mishap to an “editing error.”
“We have removed a video featuring ‘Outlander’ stars Caitríona Balfe and Sam Heughan. Due to an editing error, Caitríona Balfe was misquoted in the clip,” Gold Derby wrote in a post shared to social media that featured the entire unedited transcription.
Balfe at the time was asked to reveal the worst filming location the globe-trotting, timeline-hopping romantasy series had them working, and she identified her experience in the village Shotts.
“It’s a particular place in Shotts. I just want to be specific,” Balfe said in her full response, shared by Gold Derby. “It’s not the town — the little village. They found an old dump that was also kind of a swamp, and we were there for over a week, and our sets kept getting attacked, and it was not my favorite place.”
“Gold Derby deeply regrets the error and sincerely apologizes to Caitríona Balfe, the people of Shotts and everyone involved,” the statement concluded.
The Daily Record reported the show filmed in Hartwood Hill in 2024. A source told the outlet that items were stolen from the show’s set and added, “The set quad bike was stolen and set fire to and they struggled further to secure the set. They also had a lot of difficulties with the ground being impenetrable.”
The misquote drew the ire of former MSP Alex Neil, who told The Daily Record, “I think she’s pretty ignorant of what Shotts is really like and I’m happy to enlighten her.”
“There’s no denying the social problems facing Shotts because, like many other ex mining communities, no government has invested in these communities, so they’ve been allowed to run down physically,” he also said. “But the point is, in these communities the people have a heart of gold, they’re very good, decent hard working people who are trying to make the best of their lives and make ends meet in very difficult circumstances.”
He added, “Far from being the ‘armpit’ — which suggests the place stinks — the people are actually lovely people in Shotts. She is probably totally ignorant of its history.”
