She rose to fame playing the prim and proper Princess Anne in The Crown.

But Erin Doherty revealed her potty mouth to Today programme listeners tuning into Radio 4 on Wednesday morning.

While promoting her new Netflix series Adolescence alongside co-star Stephen Graham, Erin, 32, became embroiled in a conversation about pretentious language used by actors.

During the pre-recorded segment, she told presenter Amol Rajan: ‘I think there is a weird cliche about being, pardon my French, a w***y actor. I get it all the time.’

Her co-star Stephen, 51, chimed back with similarly risqué language: ‘I’ve been dying to say that word, but I’ve said pretentious all the time. I don’t want to sound like a w***** basically.’

Unlike television, radio is not subject to the watershed but the BBC has strict guidelines over broadcasting offensive language.

Erin Doherty revealed her potty mouth to Today programme listeners tuning into Radio 4 on Wednesday morning

While promoting her new series Adolescence (pictured) alongside co-star Stephen Graham, Erin, 32, became embroiled in a conversation about pretentious language used by actors

The actress rose to fame playing the prim and proper Princess Anne in The Crown (pictured in series in 2019)

Words such as w*****, t****r and s**g are deemed by Ofcom to be terms that can cause moderate offence, and therefore the BBC says that care should be taken when broadcasting them and require a clear editorial justification to support their use.

When approached last night the BBC refused to say if any complaints had been received, but said that airing offensive language depends on the context and the programme’s audience.

Adolescence stars Erin as a child psychologist and sees Stephen play the father of a 13-year-old boy, played by Owen Cooper, who is arrested for the murder of a young girl.

Last year, BBC Radio 4 presenter Mishal Husain stunned Today listeners when she said the word ‘s***’ seven times in one minute during an interview with James Cleverly.

The former Today host, 50, quizzed the then home secretary over his own alleged use of expletives that provoked national controversy during the tense interview.

Cleverly had said he did not recognise claims that he had described the Rwanda policy as ‘bats**t’.

While he also denied calling Labour MP Alex Cunningham’s Stockton North consтιтuency a ‘s**thole’, insisting he actually called the politician ‘a s**t’.

Questioning the politician, Mishal said: ‘There have been a number of times now, recently, when things you have said have [got] you into trouble.’

Stephen (seen yesterday), chimed back with similarly risqué language: ‘I’ve been dying to say that word, but I’ve said pretentious all the time. I don’t want to sound like a w***** basically’

Adolescence stars Erin as a child psychologist and Stephen as the father of a 13-year-old boy, played by Owen Cooper (seen in show with Erin), who is arrested for the murder of a young girl

‘There was the time it was reported [that] you had called a government policy was ‘bats***’, there was the personal place you referred to in parliament that was a ‘s***hole’.’

The BBC allows swearing when ‘editorially justified’ and is likely the word ‘s**t’ was considered tolerable by the corporation because it was quoting a politician in a story where his choice of language was an issue of controversy. 

It is also not a word that is particularly offensive given it has no Sєxual, racial or religious connotations. 

Ofcom ranks ‘s**t’ as ‘medium’ in terms of its level of offensiveness. This means it is ‘potentially unacceptable’ before the 9pm TV watershed. However, the watershed does not apply to radio. 

Last year, BBC Radio 4 presenter Mishal Husain stunned Today listeners when she said the word ‘s***’ seven times in one minute during an interview with James Cleverly (seen) 

The host, 50, quizzed the then home secretary (pictured in January 2024) over his own alleged use of expletives that provoked national controversy during the tense interview