Broadcaster Danny Baker has been fired by the BBC over his tweet about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's new baby. The now deleted tweet, which has bee
Broadcaster Danny Baker has been fired by the BBC over his tweet about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s new baby. The now deleted tweet, which has been circulated on social media, showed an image of a couple holding hands with a chimpanzee dressed in clothes with the caption: “Royal Baby leaves hospital”.
Harry and Meghan, whose mother Doria Ragland is African American, revealed their new born son has named Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.
The BBC said Baker’s tweet “goes against the values we as a station aim to embody. Danny’s a brilliant broadcaster but will no longer be presenting a weekly show with us.”
After tweeting an apology, calling his tweet a “stupid unthinking gag pic”, Baker tweeted about the BBC’s decision, saying: “The call to fire me… was a masterclass of pompous faux-gravity. Took a tone that said I actually meant that ridiculous tweet and the BBC must uphold blah blah blah. Literally threw me under the bus. Could hear the suits’ knees knocking.”
When quizzed on what he would do next, he added: “I’m annoyingly ebullient and if you’re accused of the kind of grotesque racism but you’re not, you don’t wring your hands. Ill advised, ill thought out and stupid but racist? No, I’m aware how delicate that imagery is.”
This will be the second time the controversial presenter has been axed by 5 live and is the third time he has left the BBC. In 1997, he was fired for encouraging football fans to make a referee’s life, hell after the official had awarded a controversial penalty in an FA Cup tie. He later claimed he had never incited fans to attack the referee, only that he would have understood if they had.
In 2012, two weeks before Danny Baker was inducted into the Radio Hall of fame, he was back in the news after an on-air rant in which he resigned and branded his bosses at BBC London “pinheaded weasels” after being asked to move from a weekday programme to a weekend.
