Wheeler Dealers host Edd China once explained why Mike Brewer gets “hate” from viewers of the popular classic car restoration show.
The former host, who left the series in 2017, claimed the show was mimicking a “pantomime” with Mike the “workhouse boss”.
The two split up their on-air roles with Mike seen sourcing and buying the vehicles and later selling them on.
Meanwhile, Edd was in the garage working on fully restoring a car to ensure the duo extracted maximum value.
Speaking to the Road to Success podcast, Mike said: “Edd tells the story better than me as to why he got the love and I get the hate, he summed it up perfectly when we were together.
“He said ‘it’s pantomime. Wheeler Dealers is pantomime. You’re the workhouse boss and I’m the worker. You’re the workhouse boss you stroll in and go where is the car, is it finished, give me the money. I’m the one that’s doing all the grinding and the mechanics’. Edd said those words.
“And that always resonated with me. It is fundamentally a TV show, a car show. It’s entertainment. That’s what it is.
“Still today I get the thousands of people say ‘you lazy b****** you don’t do anything to the programme.
“Well no, I write it, create it, produce it. When the cameras are turning I’m diving in and we’re all working on the car together, But people don’t know that and people don’t see that and that’s fine I don’t care.”
Mike revealed Edd’s theory as he opened up on how social media abuse from fans has impacted his life.
The star revealed some of the comments had “affected him” and his mental health.
Mike even said there had been times he had been unable to get out of bed in the morning or had become unable to focus.
He explained: “It’s hurtful. What people say is hurtful but I’m so thick-skinned and I’ve had so much of it over the years it’s sort of passed me by now.
“But it still upset people around me, my mum and my dad, he’s on the internet. He doesn’t need to see that nonsense about me, He doesn’t need to see any of that stuff.
“When you start to peel back what people are saying, how nasty they are, how vindictive people are you peel it all back and go why?
“Why? All I am is a guy who fixes up cars. That’s all I do. Fix cars and entertain people. I don’t do anything else to hurt people so I just don’t get it.”
