Simon Harris AKA Man Behaving Dadly is 39 years of age (Companies House gives a birth date of 1983) and is ostensibly a stay at home dad and parenting blogger. In reality, he's a performing clown desperate for attention and social media engagement. He appears to do very little parenting and instead spends all day on Twitter ranting into the void.
About Simon
Simon lives near Southend, Essex, UK with his wife Rachael and their four children: sons T. (aged 2), J. (aged 5), L. (aged 9), and daughter E. (aged 6.) L. has autism, which Simon has written about at length. Rachael is the family breadwinner. She used to have her own companion Facebook page called Mum Behaving Madly, but quickly gave it up and now no longer posts on social media. Simon and the kids often appear to go on holidays or sponsored trips without her - is she really working each time, or just taking the opportunity to get a break from him?
Simon has around 110,000 followers on Twitter and 200,000 on his Facebook. He is constantly begging for attention, trying to get public figures to notice him, and bragging about getting more likes/retweets than various people he doesn't like. There is no bandwagon he won't jump on and no one he won't kiss up to for clout on social media.
As well as his social media, he writes a
Man Behaving Dadly blog, and a spoof news site called
Southend News Network (which is just another outlet for his endlessly recycled jokes.) He fundraises online for various causes, notably the RNLI, and
often brags about how much he raised even though all he did was direct donations to a GoFundMe. Questions have been raised over his dissolved limited company, see below for more.
Simon's Fixations
Things/people he likes
- Harry and Meghan
- King Charles III - despite Simon's professed disdain for the Royal Family, he wouldn't shut up about it when he met then-Prince Charles.
- Breastfeeding
- Toilet humour
- Endlessly recycling the same "jokes" and tweets
- Accusing others of "ragewanking"
- The RNLI
- Supertanskii - he likes to imitate her habit of calling others "cockwombles" and "wankspanglers."
- Gary Lineker
- Phillip Schofield - Simon defended him just because Schofield was being discussed on GB News.
- Mae Muller - 2023 UK contestant in the Eurovision Contest, who is critical of Brexit. In a stunning display of logic, Simon encouraged pro-EU Europeans to vote for Muller ... which would cause the UK to win.
- Social media validation
- GoFundMe - Simon professes to be an heroic fundraiser and brags about how much money he’s raised for charity in his Twitter bio. In reality, Simon’s benevolence is simply a cover for his own self obsession and his fundraising activities involve nothing more than sitting in his underwear at home, eating Pringles and retweeting links to GoFundMe pages. No marathons, sponsored sky dives or anything which requires the slightest bit of effort on his part.
- Mouldy bananas – Every time schools are due to return from a holiday period, Simon rolls out the same gag about parents discovering a mouldy banana in their children’s lunchbox from the previous term. Oftentimes, the joke is embellished with tales of the banana evolving into a sentient mutant. The appearance of the gag has become so reliable that in August 2023, a book was opened allowing Tattle members to bet when it would make its customary appearance. The forum was buzzing with anticipation on Sunday 3rd September as the community sensed that it was near, and Simon didn't disappoint. The last day of any school holiday is now known as Banana Tweet Day in honour of Simons favourite joke.
Things/people he doesn't like
- Tattle
- Anyone politically right of Jeremy Corbyn
- The Tories
- "Barry", "Clive", and "Brian" - imaginary characters Simon made up for the purpose of strawman arguments.
- GB News
- Brexit - Simon voted leave in 2016 (as a "protest vote" he says) but now constantly complains about Brexit and insults other leave voters. We suspect he doesn't regret his vote at all and is just playing to his audience. If he'd attracted a Tory crowd at the start, he would be praising Brexit intead.
- The Daily Mail
- "The S*n"
- Nigel Farage - Simon's RNLI fundraising campaign is intended to buy a hovercraft called "The Flying Farage" just to spite him.
- Smiling - as a bitter, left-wing extremist, smiling does not come naturally to Simon. On occasions where he is required to pose for photographs, his forced attempts at appearing happy often leave him looking like he’s just had a lobotomy. Some have theorised that he was taught to smile by a blind person describing it to him or that his expression was actually the result of an unfortunately placed cattle prod.
Things/people he's not sure about
- Jack Monroe - fellow Southend-based grifter. He used to be a big fan of hers but has somewhat changed his tune ever since public opinion turned against her
- Gender issues - Simon doesn't discuss these because he can't predict how his followers would respond.
Nasty little man
Despite Simon frequently professing to fight against injustice and prejudice in all their forms, he's (surprise!) not the nicest person.
Simon seems to think it is okay to pick on people as long as they're the ones he has decided are the bad guys. In July 2023 he defended Huw Edwards over allegations of paying a teenager for explicit photos; Simon said it was cruel to discuss this because of Edwards' mental health. But subsequently, Dan Wootton (whom Simon had recently criticised for his comments on Edwards) was also accused of paying men for nudes. Simon happily tore into him, apparently Wootton's mental health isn't important.
He talks a lot about misogyny and women being bullied online, yet abuses Tory women like
Nadine Dorries and Sophie Corcoran on Twitter. He tweeted at Gillian Keegan (then Secretary of State for Education, who was under fire over school closures) with
what came across as a threat of violence.
On multiple occasions he has tried to shut down online discussion about alleged sex offences by public figures; telling people they will be sued and should stop talking about it. While it's important not to outright say anything libellous on social media, he comes across as aggressive and dismissive of victims or people who may genuinely know a victim.
Simon often says that racism is the
only reason why someone would dislike a Black person in the public eye. The way he talks about it suggests race is the main/only thing he sees when he looks at Black people - which itself is a pretty racist view. He is also happy to
make racist jokes for engagement when it suits him (referencing the
Only Fools and Horses episode "The Longest Night." He
Deleted this tweet when others pointed out that it was racist.)
He sometimes works with local NHS authorities on educational/publicity material, and was once asked to help design a campaign promoting cervical screening. He came up with the slogan
"Use Your Head, and Spread." Why they thought it appropriate to commission him for a campaign about women's health, telling women in crude and overly-sexual terms to "spread (their legs)", is anyone's guess.
He is in multiple Facebook groups devoted to "hun" memes, where he leaves very vicious comments that make it clear he enjoys making fun of working-class women.
He often
defends shoplifting (especially of baby milk) and
tells his followers not to report others for stealing baby milk. It is irresponsible to post things like this because it can encourage someone to risk shoplifting and potential arrest. Criminals like to steal formula milk to resell and/or mix with drugs - if you see someone pinching it, they may very well not be a struggling person trying to feed their baby.
Simon is Jewish but is a fan of Supertanskii (who made antisemitic "jokes" on her blog) and several Labour politicians accused of antisemitism. He justifies this by saying one can be both Jewish and antisemitic. That's true - but do you really want to advertise it?
In response to a
Facebook post by an autistic man who had called police over a dispute in Costa Coffee, Simon left
a rather nasty comment insulting/making fun of him. How would Simon feel if someone treated his own autistic son that way?
Dodgy finances
Simon previously owned a company that was liquidated with around
£74,500 of debt. This included a £21,000 COVID "bounce back" loan - while these were handed out quite freely during the pandemic, it's questionable how he got such a large sum when his main business activities were his blogging and spoof website. The company also owed
over £15k in unpaid taxes to HMRC. For all Simon's complaints about Tory tax-dodging, he seems happy not to pay tax that's funding public services.
The RNLI confirmed to a Tattler that
they do receive all the money from the Flying Farage appeal, so this is legitimate.
Behaving dadly, badly
Given the inordinate amount of time Simon spends on social media (if you think he tweets a lot, look at the replies), it's questionable how much childcare he actually does. He once defended this by saying he gets a lot done in a day, including driving the kids around and "answering questions about Peppa Pig."
Take a look at his list and decide for yourself.
His social media indicates that his children spend a lot of time using screens. He also shares photos where they look visibly dirty and/or have unwashed hair.
Simon has shared a lot of personal information about his children online and in published press articles. This includes their names, birthdays, photos, what school they attend, and details about L.'s autism. He doesn't post photos of his wife; presumably she has asked him not to. But he has no problem sharing all kinds of information about his children who are all too young to understand the implications for their privacy. When he was first on social media he took more care to hide their identities e.g. by blurring out the logo on their school uniform, but no longer bothers.
Much was made of an incident when T. threw a tantrum in the supermarket and Simon calmed him down with a packet of crisps that hadn't been paid for yet. Simon tweeted about this and shared a photo of T., calling him a "stroppy little bastard." Then got into an argument with someone who criticised him for not paying for the crisps. Maybe T. would have been in a better mood if his dad paid attention to him and got on with the shopping rather than being on Twitter?
Simon had L.
pose for a staged photo looking at the
Daily Mail website and then said he'd rather L. were watching porn. Because that's a totally normal thing to say about your 8-year-old.
Simon often appears in local press because he'll sell any non-story for attention. One of these was when L. wanted to go to a chip shop that was famous on TikTok. Simon
drove his children there on a Sunday when the shop was shut, just so he could take photos outside. It was a
five-hour round trip and T., who was still a baby, went with them. Why would you put your children through this just for content?
He once "joked" in his Twitter bio that he
"will use own kids for freebies" when this is exactly what he does.
On 7 September 2023, Simon
gave an interview on a US public radio show about the UK schools concrete crisis. Two-year-old T. "accidentally" interrupted the broadcast and thought the host, Orla Barry, was "Mummy." Did Simon stage this or do the kids really see so little of their mother that T. thought a complete stranger was her? Together with the frequent family holidays without Simon's wife, Tattlers (and some of his followers) have speculated that they're no longer together and Simon is the kids' sole carer.
Greatest hits from his blog
Deperately seeking attention
Simon frequently tweets at Martin Lewis (journalist/TV presenter with a focus on personal finance) and Carol Vorderman, trying to get their attention. He will often do this several times a day, see
here for examples of some of his tweets to Martin Lewis. Lewis appears to have blocked him for this reason.
When Simon ranted about how life was supposedly better for everyone in Britain during the 2012 Olympics, the actor Sean Biggerstaff responded and called him
"an ignorant, complacent arsehole." Simon retweeted this without comment because he couldn't resist the urge to show off that someone in the public eye had noticed him!
In 2023, the UK faced a crisis over schools being closed out of concern the buildings could collapse (as they were built with cheap concrete that isn't designed to last.) Simon rushed to cash in on this and whored himself out to any media outlet that would have him. He managed to get a radio interview in the USA, and a brief quote on BBC News. He then posted a number of self-righteous tweets making it sound like the press were beating a path to his door. Simon's only "qualification" to talk about this is that (like thousands if not millions of other parents in Britain) his children go to an affected school. He knows nothing about building materials, education, or anything else relevant to the topic.
Simon thinks he's the next Jeremy Beadle and likes to play stupid "pranks", such as
sending wine and Dairylea to 10 Downing Street or
making a parking space look like it said BLACKS. Then he goes running to the local papers in glee as if this is somehow a hot news story.
