BBC fires broadcaster over royal chimp photo

CAIRO – 12 May 2019: Danny Baker, a broadcaster with BBC Radio 5 live, was fired last week after a tweet slammed him for being racist, comparing the duke and duchess of Sussex’s son, Archie, to a baby chimpanzee.

The tweet triggered enormous backlash on social media as Baker resembled Archie’s mixed race to a chimp dressed in a coat and hat.

With the caption “Royal baby leaves hospital,” the tweet attracted angry comments, prompting Baker to delete it and apologize in several tweets later. He explained he was misinterpreted; however, it was like the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Baker tweeted he was fired from BBC over his tweet, the action that he saw as a “masterclass of pompous faux-gravity.” He criticized the escalation against him and described the condemners as having “diseased minds.”

In an emailed statement, the BBC said: “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,” as quoted by Washington Post newspaper.

The ex-BBC presenter thought his apologies were enough to stop the angry wave launched against him, as he tweeted:

“Once again. Sincere apologies for the stupid unthinking gag pic earlier. Was supposed to be a joke about Royals vs circus animals in posh clothes but interpreted as about monkeys & race, so rightly deleted. Royal watching not my forte. Also, guessing it was my turn in the barrel,” he tweeted.

However, Baker kept receiving threads of negative comments, triggering him to defend himself:

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. Fuck, what had I done? I needed no lessons on the centuries slurs equating simians and people of colour. Racism at it's basest.

— Danny Baker (@prodnose) May 10, 2019

He said the picture was “a genuine, naïve and catastrophic mistake.”

Now Sky at the door.
Would have used same stupid pic for any other Royal birth or Boris Johnson kid or even one of my own. It's a funny image. (Though not of course in that context.) Enormous mistake, for sure. Grotesque.
Anyway, here's to ya Archie, Sorry mate.#Occam #Razor

— Danny Baker (@prodnose) May 9, 2019

BBC said that it was not the first time to fire Baker, and that he was fired in 1997 over inciting statements against a referee, after a controversial penalty awarded in an FZ Cup tie. Another time he resigned was in 2012, when he branded his bosses at BBC London as “pinheaded weasels” on air.