Joe Cullen breaks silence on angry Sky Sports darts interview after ‘hideous’ treatment
Joe Cullen admitted that his angry World Darts Championship interview was premeditated as he addressed his “hideous” treatment.
After beating Wessel Nijman 3-0 in the second round of the 2025 tournament, Cullen gave Sky Sports reporter Abigail Davies terse one-word answers during a frosty on-stage exchange. He then stormed out of his post-match press conference, accusing the assembled media of showing him a lack of respect.
Cullen, the 32nd seed, was annoyed at being made the underdog for the match against up-and-coming star Nijman. He blasted: “I’ve been shown no respect, so I won’t be showing any respect to any of you guys tonight. I’m going to go home. Cheers.”
His outburst was widely criticised by fans, although Davies has since told Mirror Sport that she has no hard feelings towards the Rockstar. Cullen has now broken his silence on the media sub, revealing he had been fired up at being written off.
“If I’m going to be honest, it was preemptive, I knew what I was going to do before I went into the interview,” he told Online Darts.
“I knew before the game that I wasn’t going to lose. It was a good thing. It was nothing against the bookies, it was nothing against Wessel. I just felt that I’d been overlooked. If I’d been overlooked for Luke Humphries, Luke Littler, someone who’s playing amazing, yeah, no problem.
GET INVOLVED! Was Cullen right to be upset at being written off? Tell us in the comments section.
“Wessel was lucky to get through his [first round] game against [Cameron] Carolissen. I thought someone with that little experience on that stage… I think he was like 1/3, 1/4 [with the bookies]. He was like seventh favourite for the tournament.
“I just thought it was hideous, for want of a better word. I had a bee in my bonnet and I knew I wasn’t going to lose that game.”
Cullen did warn Davies that he would have little to say just before the interview. She said: “As [Sky Sports commentator] Stuart Pyke was throwing to me, he did whisper in my ear that he wasn’t going to give me anything in that interview.
“But, look, I respect Joe, I get on with Joe. I have no bad feelings about that at all. He wanted to put his point across. Do I think it would have been better for him to take the opportunity to say something like, ‘look, you all doubted me, nobody thought I could do this, now I’ve proved you all wrong’?
“Yes, I do. As journalists, we all know one of the hardest things to deal with is someone giving you one-word answers because you’ve got very little time to scrape around in your head [for questions]. But I found it a little bit funny, to be honest.”
Get email updates with the day’s biggest stories