The DJ and presenter Scott Mills, 53, will no longer host his Radio 2 breakfast show. Photo / Getty Images
Broadcaster Scott Mills has been sacked, reportedly over allegations relating to a “historic relationship”.
In a statement on Monday, the BBC confirmed that Mills, one of its highest-paid stars, was “no longer contracted”.
The broadcaster reported that this followed allegations about his “personal conduct”, but refused to give further details.
But The Mirror reported that Mills’ departure was linked to a relationship from more than 10 years ago.
The 53-year-old DJ and presenter was last heard on air on March 25 and had been scheduled to return the next day, telling listeners he would be “back tomorrow”.
Mills, who has worked for the broadcaster since 1998, will no longer host the Radio 2 breakfast show, which he took over from Zoe Ball last year.
Mills, who earned between £355,000 and £359,999 ($818,470 and $829,995), was informed after his last show that his contract had been terminated.
Mills’ sacking led BBC Radio 2’s 12pm bulletin, with Jeremy Vine saying he was “taken aback” by the news.
“I had not heard anything about it until 17 minutes ago, when it was on the BBC website, and I only had the information that was given to you in the bulletin,” said the presenter.
“I have nothing more – that it was allegations about Scott Mills’ personal conduct, which have led to him being sacked.”
In a message to staff, Lorna Clarke, the BBC’s director of music, said: “I know that this news will be sudden and unexpected, and therefore must come as a shock, not least as so many of us have worked with Scott over a great many years across a broad range of our programmes on Radio 1, 5 Live, Radio 2 and TV.
“I felt it was important to share this news with you at the earliest opportunity.”
Sima Kotecha, a BBC News correspondent, later said on air: “This is mega news. We heard gasps in the newsroom when people realised he had been sacked.”
In an internal email seen by The Sun, Rhodri Talfan Davies, the acting director-general, told staff: “I hope you all understand that we are not able to share any more information.”
Mills had hosted the Radio 2 breakfast slot, one of the BBC’s most coveted roles, since January last year.
He told The Telegraph that month that it would take time for the Radio 2 audience to adjust to him and that he would play the “long game” in an effort to win listeners round.
After Mills took over Ball’s slot, the number of listeners dropped by 600,000, as the station’s overall audience dipped below 13 million for the first time.
Mills appeared on Strictly Come Dancing in 2014 and co-presented Eurovision earlier this month.
He married his partner, Sam Vaughn, after the pair won Race Across the World, the BBC reality TV show, in 2024, following a 12,390-km race across South America.
The couple met during a radio event in Wales when Vaughn was 26 and Mills was 42.
Mills once admitted that trouble with alcohol should have led to him being sacked by the BBC early in his career.
His heavy drinking was precipitated by the shock death in 2001 of Mitch, an early serious boyfriend with whom he had “spent every minute”, he told Now Magazine in 2012.
Grieving, and isolated by a work schedule that demanded he wake at 2.30am, Mills would habitually “drink two bottles of wine or a bottle of spirits in front of the TV” as “a way to escape”, he said.
Mills said, “That could have been a massive f***-up for me. Even I would’ve sacked me. But thank God for Radio 1 – they knew about Mitch and why I was having a bad time. It was a proper wake-up call.”
In 2003, following a lengthy night of celebration at the Brit Awards, he admitted that he was still “very, very drunk” while presenting his show.
Mills is the latest high-profile figure to leave the BBC over allegations about his behaviour.
Huw Edwards resigned as a BBC News presenter in 2024 over claims that he had paid a teenager for sexually explicit images. Later that year, he admitted making indecent images of children and was given a suspended sentence.
Edwards had also been accused of intimidating colleagues and sending them unwanted private messages, but BBC bosses had continued to treat him as “the god of news”.
After the Edwards scandal, the BBC announced a workplace culture review, which found that senior management considered some prominent staff to be untouchable.
The review said staff had turned “a blind eye to poor behaviours when productions were award-winning or attracting large audiences”.
Presenters were subsequently told to attend workshops to learn “tools for psychological safety” and how to behave with “respect and accountability”.
In November 2024, the BBC opened a sexual harassment inquiry into Gregg Wallace, the MasterChef presenter, following a Telegraph investigation into alleged misconduct, which he denied.
More than 20 people accused Wallace of inappropriate behaviour, with claims that he had made sexist and offensive jokes, had taken his top off in front of junior female staff members and had made comments about his sex life.
Kaye Adams was also removed from a BBC Radio Scotland programme after an internal complaint, which alleged that she had berated an intern and had thrown a pencil at them. Adams described the stories as malicious and “simply untrue”.
Mills leaves the BBC a week after Matt Brittin, the former Google executive, was announced as the broadcaster’s new director-general. Brittin will replace Tim Davie, whose tenure was beset by scandals, in May.
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