Robert Kelly has posted new family photos on Twitter, showing his once-infamous children nearly a decade after they stormed his live interview.
Kelly, a political-science professor who became known worldwide as “BBC Dad,” shared the update on Monday, September 29. The post quickly drew almost 10 million views. He included four snapshots: himself celebrating his birthday, hiking with his son James, his daughter Marion looking “very grown up,” and a shot of himself with his wife Kim Jung-a at a street festival.
“Some BBC Dad content,” Kelly wrote on Twitter. “It’s been awhile: My birthday; James and I hiking; Marion looking very grown-up; BBC Mom and I at a street festival.”
The children who once hijacked a serious news broadcast are now 13 and 10. Marion was four when she strutted into Kelly’s home office during the live segment, and James was only a few months old when he followed in his walker. Kim Jung-a then came crashing through the doorway to haul them out, a frantic rescue mission broadcast to millions.
Kelly has periodically given updates on the family since the 2017 clip exploded online. The original video has racked up 65 million views on the BBC’s YouTube channel alone. In 2018, he addressed the phenomenon directly in an essay for the Lowry Institute, tracing how an ordinary work-from-home mishap turned into a permanent identity.
“On 11 March 2017 I was interviewed at home on the BBC’s World News program about the impeachment of South Korean president Park Geun-hye,” Kelly wrote in that essay. “My two young children broke into my home office while I was live on air. My wife then careened into the office to pull them out. It was all captured live on global satellite TV, and the video of the blooper quickly went viral. I acquired a new moniker, one I will likely carry with me for the rest of my life: ‘BBC Dad.'”
He added a firm clarification that has followed him ever since: the moment was not staged. He called it simply a “legitimate family blooper.”
The new Twitter post triggered an immediate wave of nostalgia from viewers who still remember the original broadcast. “Incredible how time flies. The babies are now teenagers!” one commenter wrote. Another admitted, “I still religiously watch the interview when Marion comes strutting in,” and called the clip “truly iconic.”
Several followers pressed for a full recreation. “You should recreate a TikTok video of that time… And definitely BBC have to be in it,” one suggested. Another agreed: “One of these days your family needs to recreate the scene. You’ll blow up Twitter again.”
The 2017 interview itself came at a moment of acute political tension in South Korea. Kelly, then based in Busan, had been asked to analyze the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye for BBC World News. He sat in his home office, book-lined and professorial, speaking to the camera about constitutional crisis while his family staged an unscripted invasion behind him. Marion entered first, swaggering in a yellow sweater, then James rolled through in his baby walker, and finally Kim Jung-a slid across the floor on her knees to drag them both out. The BBC anchor in London tried to alert Kelly, who remained frozen in professional composure even as chaos unfolded at his elbows.
The clip’s appeal lay partly in its collision of registers: grave international news met by pure domestic absurdity. It also arrived at a cultural moment when remote work was still novel enough to seem charmingly vulnerable rather than routine. Kelly’s essay two years later suggested he understood both the humor and the lasting strangeness of his position, embracing a nickname he never sought but could not escape.
Kelly’s Monday post offered no hint of whether he plans any reunion performance for the cameras. For now, the update stands as a quiet marker of ordinary family time continuing under an extraordinary public label.