Blue Peter hosts now from sex tape and cocaine sting to 'porn' role
The dark past of some of the legendary BBC childrens' TV show hasn't stopped some them going on 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? Here, The Mirror takes a look at the mixed fortunes of Blue Peter's most loved presenters...
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. But nearly three decades later, Bacon, now 47, is still best known for being fired from Blue Peter for taking 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 told The Guardian, "My wife would like me to do AA all the time, and I just don't, but I have said I will spend more time with our therapist examining my relationship to drink."
On a trip back to the UK in 2018, Bacon fell sick and took himself to A&E at Lewisham hospital, where doctors discovered he was so desperately unwell with pneumonia, they had to put him in an induced coma.
Later Richard says doctors told him, "You were lying on the hospital trolley, you were crashing. You turned blue. We thought you were going to go into cardiac arrest and die." 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.
Now living in LA with his wife Rebecca McFarlane and their two children Arthur, 14, and Ivy, 11, Bacon joked, 'I could bring peace to the Middle East and still, when I die, the top line of the obituary will be 'fired from Blue Peter'.'
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.
Later cleared of all charges, he told the Scottish Mail, 'I lost everything overnight. I'd gone from earning over £300,000 to not a single penny coming in. And I spent about £500,000 on legal costs.
Forced to sell his £3.5m mansion and move back to his native Edinburgh, Leslie survived on royalties and DJing. 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 still been haunted by historic assault allegations when a woman claimed he groped her breasts at a celebrity party in 2008 and again in 2017, when he was accused of putting his hand down the back of a woman's trousers while dancing.
Leslie has always strenuously denied both allegations 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.
Last year she accused the BBC of failing in its duty of care to look after her, telling The Sun newspaper, 'It was bizarre to think Rolf Harris was squeezing and patting my bottom and I am standing there, thinking, '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 shouldn't have happened. I think a lot of them did know'.'
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.
Bosses admitted the results of a Blue Peter competition to identify the celebrity owner of a pair of shoes were faked when the show allowed a child visiting the studio to pose as a caller when technical problems stopped real calls getting through to the studio. Later Konnie was also involved in the show's cat-naming fix. She admitted later, 'I was horrified. I couldn't believe it was allowed to happen. It was partly because of the scam I made the decision to leave.'
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. It came out many years later that the first pet Petra was actually an emergency replacement for the original dog who had died of distemper two days before she first appeared on the show.
Veteran Blue Peter editor Biddy Baxter, who retired in 1988, revealed in her book, The Woman Who Made Blue Peter, 'It was unthinkable to traumatise our youngest viewers, so we had to trawl London for the dead pup's lookalike.'
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.
The lively border collie, who had lived with John since his TV debut in 1971, and when Noakes left, he said angrily 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. Noakes later died in 2017.
Peter Duncan
In 1980, daredevil Noakes was replaced by another action man, actor Peter Duncan, who it was revealed appeared nude in a racy film called The Lifetaker.
Despite the furore, Duncan, who co-presented with Simon Groom, Sarah Greene and Janet Ellis, wasn't sacked. He says now, 'They called me a soft porn star and it was nonsense. Yes, there was a little soft-focus nudity, but it wasn't salacious.'
Duncan even made a joke about it in 2014 when he tweeted, 'For your pleasure on my 60th trailer from my 1973 'porn' film that caused trauma and headlines.'
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 lost too soon
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. Sadly Michael died aged 28 from an Aids-related illness in 1989, although it was reported as 'liver cancer' at the time.
The show also lost another one of its presenters far too young, Gloria Hunniford's daughter Caron Keating, who died after being treated for breast cancer for seven years in April 2004, aged 41, leaving behind two young sons.
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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The Guardian
24 minutes ago
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26 minutes ago
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STV News
41 minutes ago
- STV News
Boom or Bust: Could this new Scottish video game be the next Grand Theft Auto?
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The overwhelmingly negative reaction has made the studio double down on confidence in their title, with Build A Rocket Boy's co-CEO, Mark Gerhard, claiming that people are being paid to 'trash the game' before it launches. 'There is a concerted effort by some people that don't want to see Leslie (Benzies) or Build A Rocket Boy to be successful that are making a concerted effort to trash the game and the studio,' Gerhard said. 'It's pretty easy to see the bots and the repeated replies to any content that we put out.' If the negative reaction, be it genuine or paid for, was not enough for the studio to deal with, two executives have left it just a week before the game's release. As expected, the departure of their chief legal officer and chief financial officer did nothing to help alleviate the pressure piling up on the studio, with questions popping up about whether they would be leaving if they genuinely believed MindsEye is going to be successful. 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For the record, MindsEye is billed as a linear, narrative-driven, single-player third-person shooter set in a future where artificial intelligence and human greed bring Earth to the brink of collapse. From trailers, the game gives an impression of something between Grand Theft Auto V and Cyberpunk 2077, with players taking on the role of a former soldier, Jacob Diaz. For their part, the studio have never tried to position MindsEye as a GTA competitor, but instead aim to create a unique title, something that has not been seen before. Whether they have been successful in pitching that to the players is up for debate. In a recent interview for Leslie Benzies has opened up on their vision for MindsEye and beyond. One of the key takeaways from it is that the game should act as a gateway into a much larger 'epic universe'. For the next ten years, the studio plans to evolve the game through regular content updates, ranging from standalone ones, like races, with others serving the larger narrative. 'Once players have experienced the full ten-year arc, they'll understand the shape and scope of the MindsEye universe,' Benzies explained. User-generated content will also have a big role to play, with players being able to create their own levels, races and missions via tools called and and share them with others. Those tools were originally part of the aforementioned Everywhere project; what it means for the project itself is unclear, but Benzies insisted that all will become clear 'very soon'. What's not as clear is why the studio decided to wait until a few weeks before launch to reveal those, arguably crucial, details. Build A Rocket Buy MindsEye is billed as a linear, narrative-driven, single-player third-person shooter. Unclarity and controversy aside, there is every chance MindsEye will turn out to be a great game. Those in the industry believe the fact that the title attracted perhaps the most funding out of all the Scottish video game projects ever and the amount of talent working on the game should ensure a high level of quality. Should MindsEye not be in tip-top shape upon its release, Build A Rocket Buy can take slight comfort in the knowledge that other games, such as Cyberpunk 2077 or No Man's Sky, managed to move past 'disastrous' launches and turn their fortunes around. A success would undoubtedly mean another boost in prestige for the local video game industry, but should the game prove to be less impressive, those in the sector believe it's robust enough for its reputation not to be damaged. Players won't have to wait long to decide whether MindsEye is a boom or bust. The game releases on Tuesday, June 10, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. 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