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Home / Lifestyle

Royal baby: BBC sacks radio host Danny Baker over offensive chimpanzee tweet

Daily Mail
9 May, 2019 06:05 PM3 mins to read

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BBC host Danny Baker was sacked from his radio job over the racist tweet.

BBC host Danny Baker was sacked from his radio job over the racist tweet.

BBC host Danny Baker has claimed he didn't know it was Meghan who had given birth after he was sacked for a tweet of a couple with a monkey tagged "Royal baby leaves hospital".

The Radio 5 Live host said he had been "literally thrown under the bus" by "pompous" BBC bosses after he was fired over the phone this morning. He revealed he told station chiefs to "f*** off".

The broadcaster, 61, who denied he was racist as he spoke on the doorstep of his £2 million home, sparked outrage after uploading the image. He quickly deleted it and described it as a "stupid unthinking gag".

Today he said that he was unaware of who the mother of the baby even was: "I didn't know which of our royal princesses had given birth.

Baker's offensive tweet has since been deleted.
Baker's offensive tweet has since been deleted.
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"My go-to photo when any posh people have a baby is this absurd chimpanzee in a top hat leaving the hospital.

"Had it not been Meghan - perfectly good joke. I was trying to make a point about class and it's just preposterous."

Baker posted the image just hours after Prince Harry and Meghan, whose mother Doria Ragland is African American, showed off baby Archie to the world at Windsor Castle yesterday.

As Baker was slated online, he also won the support of some celebrity friends, including the former Tory MP and broadcaster Gyles Brandreth, radio host Iain Lee, who said he was "gutted" for him, and former Five Live host Richard Bacon.

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He told MailOnline from his home in Blackheath, south east London this morning that he was "shocked at my own foolishness" and uploaded "a silly photo for a joke".

Later he revealed that he had told the head of BBC Five Live to "f*** off" and said the phone call was a "masterclass of pompous faux-gravity" when told he would no longer be working at the station.

It is the third time Baker has been sacked by the BBC, after he was dismissed by Five Live in 1997 in a row over a referee and in 2012, when his BBC London show was axed.

BBC host Danny Baker was sacked from his radio job over the racist tweet.
BBC host Danny Baker was sacked from his radio job over the racist tweet.

Baker later claimed that there were "other broadcasters they wouldn't have done that to" as many observers pointed out that the BBC failed to sack The Apprentice star Alan Sugar after he compared the Senegal football team to beach sellers in Spain.

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The broadcaster said he had became infuriated with the BBC when told he had "meant" to be racist by tweeting the picture of a chimpanzee in a hat being led out of a hospital by human parents.

Baker told MailOnline today about the moment he was sacked: "Basically they said to me 'you meant that tweet' I said to them 'you think so?

"And I said, 'well f*** you and f*** off'.

"So, by mutual agreement my employment was terminated. They did not give me a chance to apologise.

'"But I'm not very temperate anyway when people want to get rid of me. There's no conversation.

"But for them to throw us under the bus.

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"They wouldn't have done it to certain Radio Four presenters. They would have had them in to discuss it."

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