Dan Wootton on Tuesday announced that he has left GB News to launch his “own independent platform” after a British media regulator ruled that his show broke broadcasting rules by allowing a guest to make “unambiguously misogynistic” comments on air.
Wootton had been suspended from the right-wing U.K. TV channel along with contributor Laurence Fox following the offending broadcast in September in which Fox made a series of derogatory remarks about a female journalist while Wootton laughed. Despite making multiple apologies for the incident at the time, Wootton now says he needs supporters’ help starting his new platform “that will NOT be regulated by the Ofcommunist censors.”
Ofcom on Monday ruled that Fox had made “degrading and demeaning” comments on Wootton’s show last year, in which he said of journalist Ava Evans: “Who would want to shag that?” The actor-turned-political activist also called Evans a “little woman” and said: “Show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman ever, ever, who wasn’t an incel.”
The regulator said Wootton’s “reaction and limited challenge” to Fox’s remarks didn’t mitigate the comments’ potential to cause offense but rather exacerbated “it by contributing to the narrative in which a woman’s value was judged by her physical appearance.” Ofcom received more complaints about the incident than any other show in 2023.
In a Substack post announcing his new venture, Wootton denounced Ofcom’s finding as “chilling” and claimed the regulator had “once again shown themselves to be a muzzle that bows to the woke mob and only attacks those with whom it ideologically disagrees.”
The New Zealand-born broadcaster went on to praise Tucker Carlson and other former Fox News stars who left the network to start their own platforms “untampered by overlords” and generally criticized the mainstream media as having been “infiltrated, as Elon Musk so correctly put it, by the woke mind virus.”
Wootton also said followers who sign up “as a Day One founding member” of his new free speech platform will receive a personal video message of him saying thanks for their support “or whatever else you want me to say, within reason.”
Ofcom’s report about Wootton’s show contained a claim that his show’s executive producer told the host during a commercial break that he should make an on-air apology for Fox’s remarks and that an apology was “put onto the autocue, but Mr Wootton did not read it out.” Wootton claimed that he “never saw the wording of the apology on the autocue.”
“I’m not overly bothered about this anymore. I could have expressed myself better, that’s life and I’ve said my bit,” Fox said in a statement on X after the Ofcom ruling was published. He also announced Tuesday that he would be launching a new weekly show with Calvin Robinson—another broadcaster suspended by GB News after defending Wootton during the sexism row—adding that Ofcom “aren’t invited.”
This post was originally published on Daily Beast
