BBC fires radio presenter over royal baby chimp tweet

Twitter

The BBC has fired a radio presenter after he tweeted a joke about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's newborn.

In his tweet, Danny Baker posted a black and white photo of a well-dressed man and woman holding hands with a suited chimpanzee, with the caption "Royal Baby leaves hospital".

After suffering a huge backlash and allegations of racism, the 61-year-old deleted the post and apologised, saying the joke had been intended to poke fun at the royal family.

However, the BBC called it a "serious error of judgment" and added that it went "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." 

On Wednesday, Harry and Meghan revealed their new arrival was named Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.

More from International News

  • Russia launches drone attack on Ukraine's Mykolaiv region

    Russia launched an overnight drone attack on the Ukrainian region of Mykolaiv, and also struck Kryvyi Rih in what Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday was the war's biggest drone attack on the city.

  • Russia, Ukraine agree to sea, energy truce

    The United States reached separate deals on Tuesday with Ukraine and Russia to pause their attacks at sea and against energy targets, with Washington agreeing to push to lift some sanctions against Moscow.

  • China's glacier area shrinks by 26% over six decades

    China's glacier area has shrunk by 26 per cent since 1960 due to rapid global warming, with 7,000 small glaciers disappearing completely and glacial retreat intensifying in recent years, official data released in March showed.

  • Trump team scrambles to handle fallout from Signal chat

    The Trump administration sought on Tuesday to contain the fallout after a magazine journalist disclosed he had been inadvertently included in a secret group discussion of highly sensitive war plans, while Democrats called on top officials to resign over the security incident.

  • US visit to Greenland is unacceptable, Danish prime minister says

    The United States is exerting "unacceptable pressure" on Greenland, Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Tuesday, ahead of an unsolicited visit by a high-profile US delegation to the semi-autonomous Danish territory this week.

On Virgin Radio today

Trending on Virgin Radio