Rob Rinder has admitted that his accent is not real while discussing why he decided to speak with a different accent when speaking to his family.

The 46-year-old British criminal defense lawyer and television star is known for his eloquence and his rather distinguished close friends, including Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch.

The TV star has revealed that although he was born in Westminster and grew up in Southgate, he doesn’t have the typical north London accent for one very good reason – his accent is fake.

“It’s not real, my voice is artificial, it’s pure fiction,” Rob told Jamie Laing on the Good Company podcast.

“I grew up, you know, around the corner from Amy Winehouse and my father was a taxi driver.

“All right, boy, all right, Foxy,” he said in a Cockney accent. “That’s how I grew up and then by the age of three – no offence, even if it sounds deliberate – I kind of felt like I’d outgrown them mentally, intellectually and culturally and had had enough.”

“So I invented this,” he said, pointing to himself.

“To be honest, I remember my early, very early childhood, being surrounded by people who made me think, ‘I obviously have nothing in common with you. I’m not even sure if I’m related.'”

Rob and Jamie laughed when he explained that he felt very different from his family from a very young age, and joked that he felt more comfortable in mansions than in his own home.

“They didn’t have Jeremy Kyle back then, which is a shame because I could have done one of those DNA tests and looked really disappointed at four and said, ‘You’re related to your family.’ ‘Damn.'”

“They used to take me to all these beautiful, posh houses like Hatfield House, and then they’d take me home and I’d think, ‘This is fucking absurd. I live here.'”

He concluded: “It’s absolutely real, it’s not that I didn’t aspire to it, I didn’t want to be there. And so I invented this voice.”