Guy Goma has said it "broke my heart" not to get the job he applied for at the BBC, 20 years after he was accidentally interviewed by the Corporation live on air. 

Mr Goma had turned up at Broadcasting House in London for a job interview with the BBC’s IT department. 

However, upon arrival, he was mistaken for technology journalist Guy Kewney and taken up to the BBC News studio. 

There he was seated in a chair and quizzed live about a court case involving Apple. 

While Mr Goma did his best to answer the presenter’s reactions, his shock and discomfort made the interview a viral hit. 

Reflecting on the interview two decades on, Mr Goma said he did not get the job he was there to interview for with the BBC and to this day he “doesn’t know why”. 

“It made me sad and it broke my heart, to be honest with you,” he told Newstalk Breakfast. 

“Because I was expecting that job as everything I was doing and it was matching with what I belonged.” 

The BBC's  Broadcasting House. Picture by: Alamy.com.

While he might not have got the job, people still remember Mr Goma’s appearance on the BBC and he is often stopped on the street. 

“That question is coming every time people meet me on the street or when they meet me somewhere,” he said. 

“They say, ‘Guy, did you get the job?’ I always say to them, no. 

“It was not my decision to get that job.” 

Now, Mr Goma works with people who have learning disabilities and when he wants to go unrecognised, he wears a hat or hoodie. 

Elliott Gotkine and Guy Goma.

The interview also changed the life of the producer who mistook him for Guy Kewney and escorted him into the BBC News studios. 

At the time, Elliott Gotkine said he thought “my world was over because of this cock up”. 

“I was producing the business news on the News Channel or the News 24 on the BBC and I was also doing some reporting shifts,” he recalled. 

“After that incident, I was basically banned from going on-air. 

“I was asked to cover a reporter who was off sick; I came in the morning after a bank holiday Monday a couple of weeks after the event.

“I hadn't even sat down before my manager took me aside and told me that he couldn't let me on-air.” 

Feeling the mistake meant the “death knell for my career”, he got a job at Bloomberg TV and left the BBC. 

Fortunately, he was mistaken and his work for CNN on the October 7th attacks won an Emmy award. 

Main image: Guy Goma.