DESPARDES News Monitor – One of BBC’s leading radio hosts was fired after he tweeted a picture mocking the royal family.
A now-deleted tweet from Danny Baker showed an image of an old-timey couple holding hands with a chimp dressed in clothes with the caption: “Royal Baby leaves hospital.”
Critics claimed he was comparing Harry and Meghan’s new mixed-race baby, Archie, to a chimpanzee.
Following a backlash, the broadcaster insisted he didn’t mean to be racist, saying it was just “a joke about royals vs circus animals in posh clothes.”
He went on to say: “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.”
Baker’s tweetpic circulated widely online and drew outrage for its racist imagery.
The radio personality posted the tweet Wednesday evening, hours after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex introduced their newborn son to the world.
British social media users called for the BBC to fire him.
The world renowned UK-based broadcasting company confirmed Thursday that Baker had been fired from his Saturday morning radio show.
Radio 5 Live confirmed the news in a statement, calling Mr. Baker’s initial tweet a “serious error of judgment” that “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,” the statement read.
The newest addition to the British royal family — Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor — is also the monarchy’s first multiracial baby in recent history. He is half-American through his mother, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and some of his ancestors were born into slavery.
