Rare Banksy interview discovered in the depths of ITV archives hints at his identity

Remember the heady days of 2003? A different time. Radiohead released an album about George W. Bush, Nemo was found and The Office came to an end to the sweet sounds of Take That.

One man who’d probably rather not dwell on that period is Banksy, the anonymous street artist who apparently wasn’t all that anonymous in 2003.

A video has been discovered in a vault of the graffiti artist being interviewed ahead of his Turf War exhibition. The artist speaks for 35 seconds while wearing a baseball cap and a T-shirt covering half his face - but allowing a small glimpse of who the man himself could be.

In the clip, he tells Haig Gordon of ITV News:

“I’m disguised because you can’t really be a graffiti writer and then go public. The two things don’t quite go together.”

Bristol-based ITV News correspondent Robert Murphy made the discovery in the ITV archives after stumbling across a library entry with the surprising listing, “Interview with Banksy”.

Speaking toITV News, Gordon said:

“I saw his face. The only problem is I can’t remember what his face looked like

“I don’t think I could say a single thing about what he looked like. Isn’t that dreadful?

“He was relaxed, he was laid-back, he was amiable. I quite took to him. I was dreading a pretentious arty-farty type, but he was very pleasant.

“He reacted very well when I made a joke just before the camera was rolling.

“I said ‘Right, Banksy, what will you do if I take that (the T-shirt) off during the interview?’ and he just laughed, he knew I wasn’t meaning it.

“But I wish I had, because that would have been extremely valuable.”

Banksy’s people declined to comment, obviously.