I’m A Celebrity newcomer Danny Baker blasts BBC for treatment of Tony Blackburn and announces broadcast retirement
JUNGLE newcomer Danny Baker blasted the BBC for its treatment of DJ Tony Blackburn — before dramatically announcing he is to quit broadcasting and move to America.
Before joining his I’m A Celeb campmates, the radio and TV star, 59, blasted his Beeb paymasters.
He labelled them “cowardly” for sacking radio legend Blackburn over unfounded historic sex allegations.
Danny, who has worked at the broadcaster since the Eighties and has a show on 5 Live, ranted: “I thought it was revolting. I thought it was a load of cowardly management trying to say, ‘Yeah, we can do the right thing.’
“But they did the wrong thing. He was a scapegoat. He entirely was, and now they’ve had to eat humble pie.”
Danny then revealed he intends to end his 41-year TV and radio career after his 60th birthday in June.
He revealed he will quit his Saturday morning radio show and not appear on television or the airwaves ever again.
Instead, Danny — whose life was the inspiration for the BBC sitcom Cradle to Grave starring Peter Kay — will move to the US and focus on writing books.
He said: “I’m going to go to the Florida Keys and continue writing.
“It’s just I don’t want to do any more telly or radio or anything else after June when I’m 60.”
But first he is keen to tackle Bushtucker Trials in the Australian jungle — just as Tony Blackburn did 14 years ago.
Blackburn, 73, was crowned the ITV show’s first King of the Jungle in 2002.
He was stripped of shows on Radio 2 and Radio London over unfounded claims he had seduced a girl of 15.
But last month the BBC made a humiliating U-turn and rehired him.
Danny would have gone into the jungle in previous years had he not been diagnosed with what he described as “big time, proper full on” mouth and neck cancer six years ago.
He is finally all-clear after a long battle and nine months of intensive treatment during which he lost his saliva glands and nearly his voice.
He must wear a a scarf at all times in the jungle to protect the scars on his neck from UV rays.
Asked how he was feeling as he glugged a can of Red Bull, he said: “Good as gold. Look at me, I’m giving off sparks. I’m absolutely bulletproof, no problem at all.”
“For a couple of years I couldn’t eat properly. They put this hole in my chest where I had to feed through it.”
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South Londoner Danny, looked trimmer than ever as he prepared to enter the jungle camp in Murwillumbah, New South Wales, with TV’s Homes Under The Hammer presenter Martin Roberts.
Danny has lost 3st and jokes he could bring out a “cancer DVD”.
He said: “People who don’t know say ‘god you’ve lost some weight!’. I say, ‘oh please don’t ask me how’.
“I used to be a huge fat fella and when I got off at the airport in Brisbane two people sent to collect us let me go straight by them.
“They had a photograph of me from like 2006. ‘We’re looking for someone the size of a planet . . . nah that ain’t him’.”
Danny has curbed his drinking since his days of partying with Paul Gascoigne and Chris Evans — who he defended over his ill-fated spell on TV motoring show Top Gear.
He insisted Chris was right for the job, but failed to fill the shoes of ex-frontman Jeremy Clarkson because he was too positive.
Danny said: “It didn’t work. Maybe because Top Gear is a show that requires you to be a bit arched and a bit cynical.
“Chris is very positive about everything, so when he is driving a car he says ‘this is great, this is great’ — people didn’t like that.”
Danny was officially credited as a writer on the last series.
He said: “I was called into Top Gear as a kind of adviser but there was nothing I could do.
“By the time I got there the films were all shot, the scripts were done — so I was there for three weeks.
“I’ve never seen an episode of Top Gear in my life so I felt a bit of a fraud.”
During his broadcasting career Danny has won 25 Sony Gold Awards — the radio equivalent of the Oscars.
He launched 5 Live’s popular 606 football phone-in show in 1991 and took over from Dave Lee Travis on Radio 1 two years later.
He also hosted and appeared on numerous TV shows and wrote TFI Friday for Chris Evans.
Four years ago Danny was told his BBC London show was to be axed in budget cuts, leading to an on-air rant and early resignation.
It still grates on him.
He admitted: “I’ve never had any dealings with management and I’ve got no faith in their education or judgment. The Tony Blackburn thing seems symptomatic of that.”