Danny Baker says the BBC have "thrown him under the bus" after he was fired over his controversial Twitter joke about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s new baby.
In a now deleted tweet, the 61-year-old broadcaster shared a photo of a couple holding hands with a chimpanzee wearing clothes with the caption "Royal Baby leaves hospital", and many users accused the former Radio 5 Live presenter of mocking Duchess Meghan’s racial heritage.
Following the immediate backlash, Danny tweeted an apology after deleting the offending post and said the offensive meaning behind it "never occurred" to him.
The presenter has now insisted he would have made the same joke about his "own grandkids" and has branded the BBC as "tremendously weaselly" and slammed the broadcasting house for the "pretentious" way they dealt with the situation.
Speaking in an interview on LBC Radio, he said: "It could have been any posh people I would have done this. It could have been my own grandkids; I would have out a photo out leaving the hospital.
"People get it touch and say, ‘You Know there’s a race thing,’ so I take it down, but then you’re in the barrel. And the BBC decided they’re gonna throw me under the bus and that’s the thing that stings. I think that’s a tremendously weaselly thing to do again.
"When they rang up with their pretentious tones thing morning saying ‘Oh beyond the pale and abhorrent’ I said yes it was but you’re now giving credence to the idea that I now have to reveal myself as a phantom racist after all these years."
Danny went on to admit that he made a "huge blunder" and acknowledged he shouldn’t have joked about the matter.
He said: "What I can’t do is go round saying, ‘Oh it was only a joke.’ "It wasn’t a joke, it was a mistake, a real huge mistake, a huge blunder."
Fired Danny Baker says BBC have ‘thrown him under the bus’
