People still shout ‘Phone a friend?” at Chris Tarrant on an almost daily basis, the broadcaster has revealed. 

Although retired, Tarrant presented the popular gameshow Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? between 1998 and 2014 and is still fondly remembered by many fans. 

On Newstalk Breakfast, Tarrant described himself as having been “very lucky” throughout his career. 

“[I get] ‘Phone a friend?’ almost every day of my life,” he said. 

“I haven’t even done the show for… years. 

“But what happens a lot is they say ‘Phone a friend’ and you see them go, ‘Oh, he’s probably heard that a time or 10, or make that a time and 1,000.’” 

Chris Tarrant on set. Picture by: Alamy.com. 

Recalling the first ever episode of the show, Tarrant said the whole team were nervous because the stakes were so high.

“The first ever show went okay, someone won £64,000 - so, that was good,” he said. 

“The next morning, I had to do some interviews with journalists in Wembley where the studio was. 

“I was walking the hill to this hotel and a bloke winds his window down in a big lorry and goes, ‘Hello, Chris - phone a friend?’

“If you think about that, that show has only gone out once last night for an hour and already this guy is going, ‘Phone a friend?’”

Today marks 25 years since the world's most successful gameshow 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?' first hit our TV screens!

In 25 years, this ground-breaking format has been adapted in over 130 countries, consistently ranking as the #1 best travelling format of all time in… pic.twitter.com/lGbxcNpYEg

— Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? (@MillionaireUK) September 4, 2023

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? has since been sold in over 100 countries and proved wildly popular wherever it is broadcast. 

“Every single country that it’s been to, including Ireland, including Britain, including America, Australia, India, wherever, it always goes to number one,” Tarrant said. 

“It may be a week, it may be a month, it may be a year or two, but it always goes to number one.”

Main image: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Picture by: Alamy.com.