Danny Baker (pictured above) took to Twitter this morning to apologise
Sacked BBC Radio 5 Live host Danny Baker has formally apologised for his royal baby chimpanzee tweet.
The 61-year-old said he is now paying the price for his ‘genuine, naive and catastrophic mistake’.
Earlier this week he claimed he didn’t know it was Meghan Markle who had given birth after he was sacked by the BBC for a tweet of a couple with a monkey tagged ‘Royal baby leaves hospital’.
This morning he took to social media to express his regret over the posts, in a thread he said: ‘Good morning, everyone. Following one of the worst days of my life I just want to formally apologise for the outrage I caused and explain how I got myself into this mess. I chose the wrong photo to illustrate a joke. Disastrously so.’
He said he had attempted to ‘lampoon privilege & the news cycle’ and as a result, went into a file of goofy pictures, it was then that he spotted the picture of the chimp dressed as a lord.
Baker continued: ‘ (I) thought, “That’s the one!” Had I kept searching I might have chosen General Tom Thumb or even a a baby in a crown. But I didn’t. God knows I wish had.
‘Minutes later I was alerted by followers that this royal baby was of course mixed race and waves of panic and revulsion washed over me. F***, what had I done? I needed no lessons on the centuries slurs equating simians and people of colour. Racism at it’s basest.
The first four tweets in a thread of seven posted this morning by Danny Baker, where he outlined why he had posted the chimp status
The BBC Radio 5 Live host sparked outrage after he uploaded this image of a couple clinging on to a monkey wearing a suit with the caption: ‘Royal baby leaves hospital’
‘I am aware black people do not need a white man to tell them this. Deleting it immediately and apologising for the awful gaffe I even foolishly tried to make light of it. (My situation that is, not the racism involved.) Too late and here I am.’
Yesterday he 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.’
Standing on the doorstep of his £2million house in a dressing gown, Baker, 61, told MailOnline he was ‘shocked at my own foolishness.’
However, his tweet this morning also said he understood the ‘clamour’ he had face since.
‘I would like once and for all to apologise to every single person who, quite naturally, took the awful connection at face value. I understand that and all of the clamour and opprobrium I have faced since. I am not feeling sorry for myself. I f***** up. Badly.
‘But it was a genuine, naive and catastrophic mistake. There is of course little media/twitter traction in such a straight-forward explanation. The picture in context as presented was obviously shamefully racist. It was never intended so – seriously who on earth would ‘go there’?
‘Anyway i am now paying the price for this crass & regrettable blunder and rightly so. Probably even this final word from me will extend the mania. (‘Dog whistle’ anyone?) I would like to thank friends on here for their kinder words and once again – I am so, so sorry.’
On the doorstep of his £2million home yesterday 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.
‘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.’
He 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.
He told MailOnline that he was ‘shocked at my own foolishness’ and uploaded ‘a silly photo for a joke.’
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 in 2012, when his BBC London show was axed.
Baker also claimed that there were ‘other broadcasters they wouldn’t have done that to’ as many observers pointed out that the BBC failed to sack Apprentice star Alan Sugar after he compared the Senegal football team to beach sellers in Spain.
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’.
Danny Baker at his London home after he was fired by BBC Radio 5 Live for tweeting a ‘joke’ about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex
The broadcaster today hit back at the corporation after he was sacked over the phone, saying on Twitter he was ‘literally thrown under the bus’
‘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.
‘They wouldn’t have done it to certain Radio Four presenters. They would have had them in to discuss it.’
Baker, wearing a hat, spoke to journalists from his doorstep after getting dressed
Baker said he understood that the tweet could give offence but was angered that his employer failed to listen to him.
Recalling his dismissal, he said: ‘In a shocking faux-portentous gravitas way, [he said] ‘We found this to be abhorrent.’
‘Yes it was [abhorrent]. And I was aware of the context of it I took it down.
‘So I said ‘F*** you, f*** off.’
He continued: ‘If I had had a grandchild yesterday I would have put that photo up. Once I was made aware of the context I said ‘oh sh**’ and took it down.
‘But now the idea that I must have known…horse sh**. I do understand all of this. I get it.
This was a serious error of judgment and 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.’
BBC on Danny Baker’s sacking
‘But for Five Live to chuck us under the bus, come one.’
Asked what his listeners would think about the recent he events he said: ‘I’m going to go onto twitter in a minute in an orgy of self-congratulation.
‘I have been doing this for 40-odd years. I have been fired before by the BBC, twice.
‘I am annoying ebullient. If you are accused of the kind of grotesque racism that you are not you do not wring your hands. No. ill-advised, ill-thought-out, stupid. But racist? No. I’m aware how delicate that imagery is.
‘If people think I followed the royal birth and was waiting to spring that.’
Attempting to explain the disastrous tweet Baker said: ‘I saw royal baby called Archie. I did a very funny joke about ‘under the arches’.
‘And then I thought oh I know, the posh chimp in the thing [hat].
‘If Boris Johnson had a kid yesterday it would have been the monkey in the top hat because it’s a thing about class and privilege and all of this.’
Many observers accused the BBC of double standards, after they failed to sack BBC Apprentice star Alan Sugar after he compared the Senegal football team to beach sellers in Spain
Baker admitted he knew he would be fired as the storm about his tweet grew.
He said: ‘This is bound to happened once it had ignited on twitter.’
He later added on his doorstep: ‘I didn’t know which of our royal princesses had given birth. Otherwise you’d got to be thinking I’d been secretly waiting to make this grotesque joke. There’s no truth to it.
‘I’ve been doing a thing on the radio for years of famous people dressed as monkeys with fairground music.
‘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.’
Today he told LBC he ‘understand(s) entirely’ why he was sacked from the BBC, but that he is upset over the way it was handled.
He said he was ‘given a lecture which I terminated after about 30 seconds with a couple of words that I’ll leave you to fill in.’
He added: ‘But even if your bosses up there, and they’d rang you up like some junior that they… going ‘We feel that the BBC must…’, shut up!
Baker did win some support, including from Gyles Brendreth, who called him ‘one of the most decent and delightful guys in the business’ and comedian Dara O Brian and former Radio 5 Live host Richard Bacon
Baker (pictured on I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here in 2016, and right) later removed the picture after he was hit by a huge backlash with users branding it ‘racist’ because of Meghan’s heritage
‘Ring us up and just say, ‘Look, we know what’s going on here but you’ve really loused this one up’, absolutely.’
Baker said he was ‘not particularly’ rattled over the sacking.
He said: ‘I’ve been doing this game long enough to understand exactly how this has happened and where I am, I totally get that.
‘But what I can’t do, is where the sacking on what grounds saying, ‘Oh, it was only a joke,’ – it wasn’t only a joke, it was a mistake, a real huge blunder.’
Just minutes after Baker took the phone call telling him he was dismissed, he wrote on Twitter that he had been ‘fired’ adding: ‘It was red sauce, always’ in reference to a game played on his show.
In a follow up post he added: ‘The call to fire me from @bbc5live 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.’
Back Danny: the friends and colleagues who lent their support
Broadcaster and actor Gyles Brandreth was one of several TV and radio friends to come to Danny Baker’s defence today, after the DJ gave an interview from his home in which he denied categorically he had intended racist offence.
Raconteur and former Tory MP Gyles Brandreth called Baker ‘decent and delightful’
He tweeted that ‘when it comes to trying to be funny, everyone makes mistakes’.
He added: ‘All I know is that Danny Baker @prodnose is a great broadcaster, a fine writer and one of the most decent & delightful guys in the business.
‘I’m honoured to know him.’
DJ Iain Lee said the decision left him feeling ‘gutted for radio’… then deleted his tweet
In a now-deleted tweet, Talkradio host Iain Lee said that the BBC had ‘made the wrong decision’.
He added that he was ‘gutted’ for Baker ‘and for radio’.
Talkradio host Cristo Foufa said he was ‘prepared to give Danny Baker the benefit of the doubt in not having a conscious racist intent in that tweet.’
Business Duncan Bannatyne suggested a suspension would have been more appropriate
Former Dragon’s Den star Duncan Bannatyne said: ‘Danny admits to being stupid.
‘I think a fine and a period of suspension would have sufficed.’
Sack Danny: stars who insisted the tweet should mean dismissal
A slew of BBC stars branded Baker’s tweet ‘racist’.
Strictly Come Dancing professional Oti Mabuse said Baker had ‘shown his true colours’ with the post.
She tweeted: ‘This is absolutely disgusting and disrespectful… Danny Baker YOUVE shown your true colours’,
Former Strictly contestant and Red Dwarf star Danny John-Jules condemned Baker and those defending him.
He said: ‘Anyone defending Danny Baker is kidding themselves. Defending their OWN conscience rather than common sense.
‘If go around giving it Charlie Potatoes how you’re the ‘Voice of a Nation’ ‘Leading Britain’s Conversation’ WHO the f*** are you and WHICH Britain are you talking about?’
Danny John-Jules criticised Baker
Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley Jess Phillips the post pointed towards a greater problem in politics.
She said: ‘The problem here is that in politics abhorrent views find legitimacy and then we wonder why it leaks out in to our society. We should all have done more to delegitimize racism and prejudice in our politics.’
Comedian London Hughes, who has worked alongside Baker previously, suggested Baker ‘knew full well’ how his tweet could be interpreted.
She said: ‘Danny Baker (a man I’ve worked with in the past) knew full well what that tweet was suggesting. No comedian in their right mind could overlook that, that’s not how our brains work. We see a joke from every angle. He knew it was racist, thought it was funny and posted it anyway.’
ITV News anchor Charlene White described Baker’s comments as ‘old-school prejudice and racism at its peak’ and said it was ‘unacceptable’ for a ‘trusted broadcaster working at a public service broadcaster to feed that prejudice’.
Charlene White called it ‘racism at its peak’
Soap star Charles Venn said he took ‘huge offence to the extremely racist and highly stupid tweet Danny Baker recently posted’, adding ‘He has clearly made his feelings known about his views on ‘Black People’ trying to make their way in the Western World…’
The BBC confirmed his sacking today, saying in a statement: ‘This was a serious error of judgment and 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.’
In an email to staff on Thursday morning, 5 Live controller Jonathan Wall wrote: ‘I have just spoken to Danny Baker and let him know that he will no longer be presenting his weekly show with us.
‘Danny made a serious error of judgement on social media last night and it goes against the values we live and breathe on this radio station.
‘Danny has been a brilliant broadcaster for us and I want to thank him for his work with us on Saturday mornings over the last few years.’
After news of his sacking emerged, scores of social media users took to Twitter.
Some said he was right to be dismissed, but others, including broadcaster and Tory MP Gyles Brandreth defended him, saying he had not meant to be racist.
He wrote: ‘All I’ll say is: when it comes to trying to be funny, everyone makes mistakes. All I know is that Danny Baker is a great broadcaster, a fine writer and one of the most decent & delightful guys in the business.
His tweet was slammed by a host of famous faces, including Labour MP Jess Phillips, actor Danny John-Jules and tv presenter Charlene White
‘I’m honoured to know him.’
There were also claims from others accusing the BBC of double standards, after they failed to sack Alan Sugar after he compared the Senegal football team to beach sellers in Spain.
One wrote today: ‘Without question Danny Baker’s tweet was in incredibly bad taste. But if @BBC are going to sack him, yet leave Lord Alan Sugar in place, then there are bigger issues here than Baker’s mistake. Horrific BBC judgement here.
Another said: ‘I realise the answer is probably ‘because Alan Sugar has a more expensive lawyer’ but the BBC is all over the place when it comes to sacking people for racism.
And another added ‘Dear BBC, why did you not sack Alan Sugar then? #doublestandards.’
The BBC declined to comment on the claims.
Earlier today after the backlash continued to mount he told Baker told MailOnline: ‘I put up a silly photo for a joke. It was monkey in a top hat or something.
‘I would have put it up for anyone. I apologised and I took it down when it was pointed out.
‘Once I realised [that it was offensive] I took it down.’
Asked if he is a racist the BBC 5 Live broadcaster replied: ‘No of course I’m not a racist. Not in the slightest.
‘It was obviously a mistake.
‘I have made a full apology. Yes of course I’ve made a full apology.
‘I put up silly pictures all the time. But that’s all. I think even you must realise that it was a mistake.
‘I’m shocked at my own foolishness.’
After he removed the image following the huge backlash against him, Baker wrote: ‘Sorry my gag pic of the little fella in the posh outfit has whipped some up.
‘Never occurred to me because, well, mind not diseased.
‘Soon as those good enough to point out it’s possible connotations got in touch, down it came. And that’s it.
‘Now stand by for sweary football tweets.’
Twitter users called on the BBC to sack him following the tweet, which came just hours after Prince Harry and Meghan revealed baby Archie to the world
Baker, who has appeared on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! added: ‘Connection never occurred to me till people were good enough to enlighten.
‘Little fella in posh suit. Anyway, deleted now.’
As the outrage continued to pour in, Baker wrote: ‘Once again. Sincere apologies for the stupid unthinking gag pic earlier.
‘Was supposed to be joke about royals vs circus animals in posh clothes but interpreted as about monkeys & race, so rightly deleted.
Baby Archie made his very first public appearance at a photocall alongside a thrilled Prince Harry and Meghan in the grounds of Windsor Castle yesterday
‘Royal watching not my forte. Also, guessing it was my turn in the barrel.’
It isn’t the first time the presenter has faced controversy.
He was sacked from 5 Live in 1997 when bosses said he had incited threatening behaviour in an outburst over a referee.
And in 2012 he attacked the BBC on Twitter and on air after his show was cancelled.
Twitter users had called on the BBC to sack him following the tweet, which came just hours after Prince Harry and Meghan revealed baby Archie to the world.
The world was given its first ever glimpse of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s newborn son today before Baker posted the tweet
One wrote: ‘Danny Baker posts an image comparing Archie – a Royal newborn with African heritage, to an APE.
‘Danny Baker should be sacked this morning!!!’
Another wrote: ‘RACIST RACIST RACIST Danny Baker should be given today to resign and clear his desk.
‘If he is still there at 16.59 @bbc MUST FIRE HIM! I’m disgusted by the hate and racism inherent in his Tweet Unforgivable HE’s not fit to be a broadcaster employed from the public purse.
Another said: ‘Wow that didn’t take long.
‘Royal Baby is just two days old and he’s already being trolled by Danny Baker who has compared him to a chimpanzee…and Baker claims he’s not racist.’
Another added: ‘His defence? His ‘mind is not diseased!’ Is there a pic of Danny Baker introducing his career to a toilet?
Another said: ‘Sorry, Danny Baker needs to go. There’s far too much tolerance of racism – the country is really in danger of slipping into a murky and ignorant abyss, a sludge made up of xenophobia, racial intolerance and insenstivity.’
‘A genuine lack of intelligence. Make it stop.’
And another added: ‘Danny Baker needs to be sacked with immediate effect for his racist tweet and then offered what he thought was an apology which was anything but. He is a pathetic excuse of a man.
‘BBC need to do the right thing. His behaviour is appalling.’
Danny Baker: One of Britain’s original ‘shock jocks’ whose relationship with the BBC has been anything but smooth
Danny Baker’s sacking is history repeating itself – the BBC has axed the DJ before.
BBC Radio 5 Live dropped Baker’s soccer phone-in show in 1997 when the broadcaster’s news chief Tony Hall, now the corporation’s director general, said he had crossed ‘the line between being humorous and controversial and being insulting’.
He was ousted from his Wednesday slot, The Baker Line, and turned down an offer to continue his Saturday lunchtime programme.
The DJ has been unafraid to publicly criticise his BBC bosses, calling them ‘pinheaded weasels’.
Danny Baker, pictured in 2013, has today been sacked by the BBC for the third time
In 2012, he launched an on-air rant against them, after his BBC London 94.9 show was also axed, days before he was due to be inducted into the Radio Academy Hall of Fame.
Baker complained about the pay his co-hosts were given and said he hoped the decision-makers ‘choked’ on their abacus beads.
He added: ‘By the way, nice way to treat a bloke who had cancer.’
Baker’s agent Alex Armitage claimed at the time that he was dropped as a result of cuts in the budget to the local radio network.
Baker in 2012, when his BBC London radio show was axed
Two years previously, Baker announced he had been diagnosed with cancer.
He endured months of agonising treatment and years of recovery for neck and head cancer and had a period off-air while he underwent treatment.
In 2016, the DJ was the first celebrity to leave I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here! despite being the last person in.
‘My winning personality once again descends upon the nation,’ he quipped at the time.
He denied he was a bully in the jungle following a confrontation with Homes Under The Hammer host Martin Roberts.
‘I’m not responsible for a bloke who breaks down and cries after I’ve picked him up because he’s having a go at one of the girls in there,’ he said.
Baker made his name as a journalist on the punk fanzine Sniffin’ Glue before going on to work at NME and launching a career in TV and radio.
Also known as a scriptwriter for his friend Chris Evans, he became a roving reporter for London ITV magazine programme The Six O’Clock Show and presented programmes such as Win, Lose Or Draw and Pets Win Prizes.
But he previously told Desert Island Discs: ‘I don’t feel that’s somehow lucky when you look around at some of the half-wits and boss-eyed bozos who people this business and they are running departments.
‘So all of this is an anthill that somebody has kicked over and I happen to be one of the more bumptious ants.’
He added: ‘The television shows I’ve done have been an appalling waste of time … My mind is whizzing with them. A show called The Bottom Line that was no good, I’ve done a thing called Sitcom Showdown that was ridiculous