Barry Simmons

Who is Barry Simmons?

Barry Simmons is a quiz show contestant and was the winner of the BBC Two show Are You an Egghead? and as a result became the sixth Egghead, joining Kevin Ashman, C. J. de Mooi, Daphne Fowler, Christopher Hughes and Judith Keppel on the regular show on 2 December 2008.

Simmons told The Jewish Chronicle newspaper, "It’s the best job in British quizzing and to get paid for doing something you love is just the icing on the cake. But I have to admit I hate losing."

Simmons is from Leeds, West Yorkshire. He won £64,000 on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, was a semi-finalist on Mastermind and has represented England at quizzing. He reached the final of the 2008/2009 series of the radio program Brain of Britain, but was defeated by Geoff Thomas. He has been a researcher at text question and answer service AQA 63336 since 2006. Simmons was part of an AQA team that appeared on Eggheads; he won his own round but the team was defeated in the final round. He also appeared on Only Connect in 2013.

In 2013 he again reached the final of the Brain of Britain and won the competition. Before the final, some controversy was caused as he was thought of as "a professional quizzer". As reported by the BBC website: