Some of the legendary BBC children’s TV shows’ dark pasts have allowed some of them to have surprisingly successful careers. We look at the secrets and scandals of the show’s hosts and reveal where they are now
Here’s a boo-boo I made earlier! The wholesome image of the world’s longest-running children’s TV programme, Blue Peter, has often been tarnished by the antics of its presenters.
From the cocaine shame of ’90s presenter Richard Bacon to Scottish entertainer’s John Leslie’s leaked sex tape and sexual assault allegations; Konnie Huq’s phone-in scandals and TV bosses’ failure to protect their youngest ever host Yvette Fielding from depraved paedophile Rolf Harris, since its 1958 launch the show has sometimes made headlines for all the wrong reasons.
But what happened to the hosts after they left the show for pastures new? The Mirror examines the disparate careers of Blue Peter’s most adored presenters in this article.
Richard Bacon
One of the show’s most infamous former presenters, Richard is now a successful US TV producer in LA where he develops new ideas for game shows. However, almost three decades later, Bacon, now 47, is still best known for being fired from Blue Peter for using cocaine in a London nightclub.
Sacked in October 1998, the 22-year-old became the first presenter on the children’s show to have his contract terminated mid-run when he admitted taking the Class A drug after a Sunday tabloid broke the story. However Bacon’s telly career did survive the scandal and he went on to present The Big Breakfast and Top of The Pops and had an afternoon slot on BBC Radio 5 Live.
In 2014, Bacon moved across the pond to present a daytime TV show, and also admitted to addictive behaviours in the past, especially around alcohol. He claimed to be a “wife would like me to do AA all the time, but I just don’t,” but I’ve already said I’ll spend more time with our therapist looking into my drinking relationship.
When Bacon fell ill on a trip back to the UK in 2018, doctors at Lewisham hospital placed him in an induced coma because they found him to be so desperately unwell with pneumonia.
Later Richard says doctors told him, “You were lying on the hospital trolley, you were crashing. You turned blue. We predicted that you would die during cardiac arrest. Waking up nine days later after his near-death experience, Bacon discovered the London hospital ICU team had given him a tracheotomy to save his life.
Ivy, 11, and Arthur, 14, Bacon joked, “I could bring peace to the Middle East but, when I die, the top line of the obituary will be “fired from Blue Peter.” Bacon, who is now living in LA with his wife Rebecca McFarlane and their two children, respectively, joked.
John Leslie
Prior to Bacon’s stint on the show, Scottish presenter John Leslie hosted Blue Peter with the late Caron Keating and Anthea Turner from 1989 to 1994. Leslie dated Hollywood actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, but he became more even more famous for his relationship with nurse and model Abi Titmuss when a video Leslie filmed of her having sex with another woman was leaked.
But Leslie’s high-flying career co-hosting This Morning with Fern Britton came crashing down in 2002 when Swedish TV presenter Ulrika Johnson wrote in her autobiography that “an acquaintance” had raped her at 19, and his name was mentioned by mistake by Matthew Wright on live TV.
He later admitted to having “lost everything overnight” and was cleared of all charges. I’d gone from earning over £300, 000 to not a single penny coming in. And I incurred legal costs of about £500,000.
Leslie resurrected through royalties and DJing after being forced to sell his £3.5 million mansion and relocate back to his hometown of Edinburgh. Having fought his way back from being a” depressed and suicidal “recluse, Leslie, now 60, is now a property developer and lives with his girlfriend Kate Moore.
However, Leslie has been the subject of both recent assault accusations, including one involving a woman who claimed he groped her breasts at a celebrity party in 2008 and another one involving allegedly putting his hand down a woman’s undergarments while dancing.
Leslie has consistently refuted both of these accusations and was found not guilty in both cases.
Yvette Fielding
Predatory paedophile Rolf Harris was a regular on many BBC programmes, but teenage Yvette Fielding, who co- presented with Mark Curry and Caron Keating when she joined aged 18 in 1987, revealed that she was molested by the disgraced entertainer after she was left alone in a TV studio with him.
She claimed to The Sun newspaper that she was unaware of the BBC’s duty to look after her and that it was “unsightful” that Rolf Harris was squeezing and patting my bottom and I was standing there, wondering, “I don’t know what to do.” Other people in the industry must have known what he was like and (they) left me alone in the studio with him. That wasn’t supposed to occur. I believe that many of them were aware of this.
Now 56, Fielding is best known for going on to host and co-create the paranormal TV show Most Haunted alongside her cameraman and producer husband Karl Beattie.
Konnie Huq
Richard Bacon’s co-presenter Konnie Huq, who was the show’s longest female presenter from 1997 to 2008, was forced to apologise on air for a phone-in scandal which saw the BBC fined an unprecedented £50, 000 by Ofcom.
When a child could pose as a caller during a Blue Peter competition because of technical issues that prevented real calls from reaching the studio, hosts admitted that the results were faked. Later, Konnie got a cat-naming fix for the show. She admitted later”, I was horrified. I was shocked to learn that it was permitted. I made the decision to leave partly due to the scam.
Married to Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker, the 49-year-old mum-of-two in London swapped TV presenting and celebrity game show panellist roles for writing books and scripts, and is now a successful children’s author.
Pet scandals
It wasn’t unknown for the show to pull the wool over their young viewers ‘ eyes, and had its first scandal involving an animal in 1962. Years later, it became known that the original dog, Petra, had died of distemper two days before she made her debut on the show.
In her 1988 book, The Woman Who Made Blue Peter, veteran Blue Peter editor Biddy Baxter revealed that it was impossible to traumatize our youngest viewers, so we had to search London for the dead pup’s clone.
There was also a custody battle for Blue Peter’s favourite dog Shep when legendary presenter John Noakes left after 12 years, having co-presented during the show’s golden era with Valerie Singleton and Peter Purves.
When Noakes left, the lively border collie said furiously at the time, “I thought Shep was mine – they told me I could keep him, but they went back on their word. “
Leicester-born Biddy Baxter, now 91, explained in her book that Noakes did keep Shep until he and his wife Vicky went sailing around the world in 1982, before he was adopted by show pet carer Edith Menezes. In 2017, noakes passed away.
Duncan, Peter
In 1980, daredevil Noakes was replaced by another action man, actor Duncan, Peter, who it was revealed appeared nude in a racy film called The Lifetaker.
Duncan, who co-presented with Simon Groom, Sarah Greene, and Janet Ellis, wasn’t fired despite the outcry. He claims that it was absurd when they called me a soft porn star. Yes, there was a little soft-focus nudity, but it wasn’t salacious. ‘
For your pleasure on my 60th trailer from my 1973 “porn” film that caused trauma and headlines, Duncan even made a joke about it in 2014 when he tweeted, “For your pleasure on my 60th trailer.
In the early Noughties, Duncan and his wife Annie made a series of family holiday documentaries with their four children. Now 71, former chief scout Duncan is still busy every Christmas for panto season his Jack and the Beanstalk production.
Stars went too quickly.
When Duncan left his first stint on the show in 1984, he was replaced by Michael Sundin, who was very controversially sacked when rumours of his homosexuality circulated in the press. Unfortunately, despite being referred to as “liver cancer,” at the time, Michael passed away at the age of 28, in 1989, from an Aids-related illness.
Another presenter for the program, Gloria Hunniford’s daughter, died in April 2004 at the age of 41, leaving behind two young sons, far too young.
Peter Purves
However, Blue Peter’s longest serving male presenter Peter Purves, is still going strong today at 86. Purves joined the show in 1967 until 1978, and famously had a brief fling with co-presenter Valerie Singleton while he was married. The veteran presenter later admitted, “It was only one night. We remained great friends.”
The presenter also developed skin cancer from all his exotic TV destinations, telling The Mail on Sunday: “I travelled to 27 countries with Blue Peter in the 1960s and early 70s”.
Having both defied the curse of Blue Peter, Purves is now living peacefully in rural Suffolk with his wife Kathryn Evans and their dogs, while Valerie, now 88, has never married nor had children, and after a career in radio after the show, has retired to Somerset.
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Source: Mirror
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