'She got quite aggressive' - Leo Varadkar floored by woman's serious comment in pub

Former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has opened up about an incident in which he was accosted by a woman in a bar and blamed for her sister's suicide.

Varadkar, who resigned as Taoiseach in April 2024, was speaking on a new RTE show, Uncharted with Ray Goggins. The show follows former Irish Army Special Forces soldier Ray Goggins as he brings Irish celebrities on gruelling treks across the world. 

In episode one, which aired on Wednesday evening, Ray was joined in South Africa by Leo Varadkar and Cork singer Lyra with the unlikely trio forming a close bond on their trip.

During downtime from tough physical exploits, Ray probed his latest recruits on their careers and their lives with Leo opening up about the abuse he took from some members of the public while in office. 

When asked about situations like that, Leo told the story of one incident with a woman in a bar: "A woman came up to me in a bar once to tell me that her sister had taken her life because of me, you know, because of the housing crisis, she couldn't pay her rent and so on. Like, how do you deal with that kind of scenario?"

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Asked by Ray what he did and what happened next, Leo said, "on that occasion, she got quite aggressive" before saying he had a few friends with him and the situation was dealt with. He revealed something similar happened to him maybe once a month when he was a politician.

"What I did say to myself for a very long time was all the upsides of the job, and there are loads, outweigh the downsides, but the longer I was doing it, the less I was enjoying the upsides. It's just been great not to wake up every day with the worries of five million people on your shoulders. I wake up now thinking about my partner, my friends and my family and that's a very different way of living."

Earlier in the episode, Leo had said one of the positives of being out of office was the way in which he can now react to people who make comments or confront him on the street. 

Ray asked Leo as they shared a coffee in a cave, "You're not in public office anymore, does it change how you deal with people when they approach you in airports? I'm sure you're getting flak from people."

Leo replied: "What's better is, if someone's being rude to me or being nasty, I can kind of be nasty back which you couldn't really risk doing before."

Former special forces soldier Ray Goggins takes well-known Irish faces on a physically and mentally demanding adventure in the ultimate test of survival and resilience

Uncharted with Ray Goggins | Starts May 14th at 9.35pm with Leo Varadkar and Lyra | #RTEUncharted pic.twitter.com/hrjUQjRNfj

— RTÉ One (@RTEOne) May 2, 2025

Uncharted with Ray Goggins is airing on RTE One television on Wednesday nights at 9.30pm for the next number of weeks. Participants include Irish language rappers Kneecap, former Galway hurler Joe Canning and former Irish sprinter Thomas Barr.