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John Torode fired over 'worst racial slur'

John Torode fired over 'worst racial slur'

Daily Mail​7 days ago
The BBC has said the host's contract would not be renewed after a report found he had used an 'extremely offensive racist term' during drinks after filming the show. But the corporation has refused to say what the slur was - as has Mr Torode - leading to feverish speculation online that it could be the N-word. A source has claimed that it was 'worst racial slur there is' and that the Beeb and production company Banijay believe the case for sacking him is 'watertight' if he tried to go to court.
Another insider told MailOnline that there was 'relief' at MasterChef HQ that Torode is gone, saying he was 'horrible' to work with at times. Mr Torode has taken the stance that said 'he had absolutely no recollection' of the incident and did 'not believe that it happened'. This is despite a witness claiming he had apologised immediately and 'was mortified' - before insisting what he said was not meant as a racist remark. Mr Torode said this week, after his sacking, in a lengthy statement posted to Instagram: 'Although I haven't heard from anyone at the BBC or Banijay – I am seeing and reading that I've been "sacked" from MasterChef and I repeat that I have no recollection of what I'm accused of'. It was also claimed the BBC and Banijay had asked Torode to leave MasterChef citing mental health. The BBC declined to comment on the claims. But an insider said: 'The BBC and Banijay spoke to his reps before the announcement on Tuesday. 'The BBC never suggested he resign nor raised mental health'.
Richard Osman appears to know the racist term Torode was claimed to have used. Speaking on his Rest Is Entertainment podcast with Marina Hyde, he said said that his sources were shocked when they heard claims that Torode was not told he was being sacked before it was announced. 'This is not woke gone mad. He used probably the worst racial slur there is and they found that to be substantively true. They found evidence. He said that he couldn't remember it. But that one was upheld', Richard said. He added: 'More people are going to come out. They [the BBC and Banijay are going public with the things they believe that will stand up in court'. He added: 'If I were working at Banijay I would not be comfortable working on a production that he was on'.
Mr Osman claimed that Torode was offered a year off and some training - but he refused. So he was fired. 'My understanding is that they took John Torode aside. And said we believe you used this language. he denied it. They said to him: "We will accept if you want to take a year off you need to take a mandatory training course to understand and accept this is something we don't want in our workplace'. 'That was denied. He said of course not. I didn't do it. Why would I do this'. Mr Torode is said to be considering taking legal action against the BBC after he was sacked from MasterChef. Sources suggest the chef is 'preparing to launch a lawsuit against the BBC' and wants to pursue bosses for unfair dismissal. 'He's telling people there is no proof of his supposed comment. It was not in a work capacity, it was just hearsay. John is determined to clear his name,' sources told The Mirror. But, such legal action may prove impossible for John as sources told MailOnline his contract was with Banijay rather than the BBC.
This comes as MasterChef bosses are reportedly pushing to air Gregg Wallace and John Torode's final series 'when the dust settles' after they were both sacked from the cooking show. The upcoming series' - which have already been filmed - features former I'm A Celeb star and restaurant critic Grace Dent, who replaced Gregg to co-host with John. The Sun reports that The BBC and production company Banijay plan to air both the amateur and celebrity editions. However, MailOnline understands BBC director general Tim Davie , who has the final say, has not yet made his decision on whether MasterChef will or will not be aired. A source told the Sun: 'The BBC and Banijay have faced a moral and professional dilemma like never before. Obviously Gregg's case was more clear cut, but John being dragged through the mud wasn't what anyone wanted or expected to happen.'
'But at the same time, and as a publicly funded body, the BBC has a duty to both provide entertainment as well as fulfil its obligations to cast, crew, contestants and viewers alike. 'If they were to can these two series, hundreds of people — those who appeared or worked on the shows — would be so bitterly disappointed. So the feeling at present is that the show, quite literally, must go on — albeit once the dust has settled and all the fuss died down.' MailOnline has contacted the BBC for comment. The Australian chef was dramatically axed from MasterChef - hours after the BBC's director general refused to back him over an allegation of using racist language. The corporation said the host's contract would not be renewed after a report found he had used an 'extremely offensive racist term' during drinks after filming the show. The complaint against John was revealed in the report into co-presenter Gregg's inappropriate behaviour. Gregg, 60, was sacked after dozens of complaints against him were upheld.
John identified himself on Monday as an unnamed person in the report who was accused of using 'racist language'. However, the presenter said 'he had absolutely no recollection' of the incident and did 'not believe that it happened'. But in a statement yesterday, the BBC said: 'This allegation - which involves an extremely offensive racist term being used in the workplace - was investigated and substantiated by the independent investigation led by the law firm Lewis Silkin. The BBC takes this upheld finding extremely seriously. We will not tolerate racist language of any kind and we told Banijay UK, the makers of MasterChef, that action must be taken. John Torode's contract on MasterChef will not be renewed.'
Hours before the announcement, BBC director general Tim Davie (pictured) had refused to back John and said he expected 'action to be taken' over the allegation. He delivered the remarks as the BBC released its annual report - an occasion overshadowed by controversies for the second year in a row. Last year's was published amid the fallout over news presenter Huw Edwards who pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children . Asked about the Torode racism row, Tim Davie said: 'The BBC in some ways are quite simple on this - if someone is found to not live up to our values we expect the independent company, Banijay in this case, to take action and report back to us on what they have done. 'These are not BBC employees, but we absolutely expect action to be taken.'
Tim added: 'I think a great programme that's loved by audiences is much bigger than individuals. 'It absolutely can survive and prosper, but we've got to make ing drinks sure we're in the right place in ness terms of the culture of the show.' It had been alleged by a source close to John that he had used an inappropriate racial term during drinks after filming. The witness claimed he had apologised immediately and 'was mortified' and he 'didn't use the term as a slur'. No one complained at the time but the incident was brought up during the inquiry into Gregg, they said.
On Monday, John said he had 'absolutely no recollection' of the incident and was 'shocked and saddened' by the allegation. 'I would never wish to cause anyone offence,' he added. Responding to his sacking, John, who is married to actress and former Celebrity MasterChef contestant Lisa Faulkner, said: 'I'd hoped that I'd have some say in my exit from a show I've worked on since its relaunch in 2005, but events in the last few says seem to have prevented that.' He said he 'had loved every minute' working on the show but it was 'time to pass the cutlery to someone else'. 'Life is everchanging and ever moving and sometimes personal happiness and fulfilment lay elsewhere,' he added.
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How Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath found their sound - and invented heavy metal
How Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath found their sound - and invented heavy metal

BBC News

time17 minutes ago

  • BBC News

How Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath found their sound - and invented heavy metal

If you saw Black Sabbath's first ever gig, you wouldn't have recognised in 1968, they had the decidedly less sinister name of The Polka Tulk Blues Band, and came complete with a saxophonist and bottleneck guitar player.A year later, they'd slimmed down, found a new name and invented heavy metal. Few bands are so inextricably linked with a musical genre, but Sabbath set the template for everyone from Motörhead and AC/DC to Metallica and Guns 'n' the way, singer Ozzy Osbourne, who has died at the age of 76, became one of rock's most influential figures, with an electrifying and unpredictable stage presence and an almost mythological intake of drugs."If anyone has lived the debauched rock 'n' roll lifestyle," he once admitted, "I suppose it's me."So how did these four working class musicians from Aston, Birmingham rewrite the rules of rock? According to Osbourne, it was a visceral reaction to the "hippy-dippy" songs like San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair) that saturated the airwaves after 1967's Summer Of Love."Flowers in your hair? Do me a favour," he seethed in his 2010 autobiography. "The only flowers anyone saw in Aston were the ones you threw in the hole after you when you croaked it at the age of 53 'cos you'd worked yourself to death."Teaming up with guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward, Osbourne's initial idea was to put a Brummie spin on the bluesy sound of Fleetwood band's first name, Polka Tulk, was inspired by a brand of talcum powder his mum ditching the saxophone, they rebranded as Earth, taking as many gigs as they could manage, and even blagging a few extras."Whenever a big name band was coming to town, we'd load up the van with all our stuff and then just wait outside the venue on the off-chance they might not show up," Osbourne later worked... but only once, when the band were asked to stand in for an absent Jethro Tull. "And after that, all the bookers knew our name," Ozzy said. That opportunistic streak also steered them towards their signature just so happened that the band's rehearsal space was directly opposite a cinema that showed all-night horror audiences flock to these shows, the band conjured a plan."Tony said, "Don't you think it's strange how people pay money to get frightened? Why don't we start writing horror music?" Osbourne told music journalist Pete Paphides in 2005. "And that's what happened."The musicians metamorphosed into their final form: Adopting the name Black Sabbath, after a low-budget Boris Karloff film of the same name, they started writing lyrics that dabbled in death, black magic and mental suit the material, the music needed to get heavier, too. Ward slowed down the tempo. Iommi turned up the volume. Osbourne developed an aggressive vocal wail that always seemed to be teetering on the precipice of it was Iommi's guitar playing that really set Sabbath apart. His riffs leapt from the amplifier and hit the audience square in the chest with taurine was a sound he developed by necessity. When he was 17, Iommi was working in a sheet metal factory when he lost the tips of his two middle fingers in an industrial accident. Although surgeons tried to reattach them, they had gone black by the time he reached hospital. It looked like the end of his guitar career. Obituary: Wild life of rock's 'prince of darkness'Did Osbourne really bite the head off a live bat?'There will never be another Ozzy': Rock royalty pays tribute "The doctors said: 'The best thing for you to do is to pack up, really. Get another job, do something else'," Iommi wrote in his autobiography, Iron to prove them wrong, he melted down a fairy liquid bottle to make protective thimbles for his fingers, and slackened his guitar strings so he wouldn't have to apply too much pressure on the fretboard to create a months of painful practice, he learned a new style of playing – using his two good fingers to lay down chords, and adding vibrato to thicken the sound. That stripped-back, detuned growl became the basis of heavy metal."I had never heard that style of playing," said Tom Allan, who engineered Sabbath's self-titled debut album in 1969."I couldn't really fathom it. I didn't really get it. You never heard anything like that on the radio." The record was grim and sludgy – partly because the band had recorded it in just two days, with limited weren't sure what to make of it. Writing in Rolling Stone, Lester Bangs said the album had been "hyped as a rockin' ritual celebration of the Satanic mass or some such claptrap... They're not that bad, but that's about all the credit you can give them."The supposedly satanic imagery sparked a moral panic in the mainstream press, which intensified when it was discovered that the album's title track contained a chord progression known as the Devil's Interval, which had been banned by the church in the Middle the press didn't realise was that Black Sabbath, the song, had been written as a warning of the dangers of satanism, after Ward had fallen asleep reading books on the occult and woken up to see a ghostly, hooded figure standing at the end of his bed."It frightened the pissing life out of me," he later the truth, the controversy sold records and attracted legions of the band returned to their hotel to find 20 black-clad satanists holding candles and chanting outside their room. To get rid of them, Osbourne blew out the flames and sang Happy Birthday. Still, Sabbath leaned into their reputation, writing darker material and gaining a reputation as hellraisers as the 70s wore the music was never as basic or one-note as their image second album, Paranoid, marked a seismic leap in songcraft, from the visceral anti-war anthem War Pigs, to the creeping intensity of the title track, via the sci-fi horror of Iron Man, and the ghostly balladry of Planet kept up the pace on 1971's Master of Reality, with Osbourne describing Children Of The Grave as "the most kick-ass song we'd ever recorded".Vol 4, released in 1972, is sometimes overlooked because of its lack of a big radio single, but it also contains some of the band's best and most varied documents their descent into drug abuse with a depth-charge guitar riff; while St Vitus' Dance is a surprisingly tender piece of advice to a heartbroken friend, and Laguna Sunrise is a bucolic instrumental. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, meanwhile, was written as a furious critique of a music industry that had written them off."The people who have crippled you / You want to see them burn."After 55 years, and hundreds of imitators, the revelatory shock of Sabbath's sound has dimmed. How else do you explain Osbourne and Iommi performing Paranoid at Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee in 2002?But the power of those songs, from Iommi's brainsplitting riffs to Osbourne's insistent vocal wail, is he inducted Black Sabbath to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Lars Ulrich of Metallica said, "if there was no Black Sabbath, hard rock and heavy metal would be shaped very differently"."When it comes to defining a genre within the world of heavy music," he said, "Sabbath stand alone."Writing after the band's penultimate farewell show in 2017, Osbourne said he was humbled by the acclaim."I never dreamed we would be here 49 years later," he said."But when I think about all of it, the best thing about being in Black Sabbath after all these years is that the music has held up." Five essential Ozzy Osbourne songs 1) ParanoidWritten as a last-minute "filler" for Black Sabbath's second album, the group accidentally created their biggest hit: The story of a man battling his inner voices, set to one of rock's most powerful riffs."Every now and then you get a song from nowhere," said Osbourne. "It's a gift." 2) Crazy TrainThe song that launched Osbourne's solo career, it's almost atypically upbeat - shrugging off Cold War paranoia and declaring: "Maybe it's not too late to learn how to love." It's only the maniacal laughter in the fading bars that suggests this outlook is the purview of a madman. 3) Sabbath Bloody SabbathSabbath's reputation for darkness means their melodic capabilities were often overlooked. But Osbourne was a passionate admirer of the Beatles, and you can hear their influence on the pastoral chorus of this song, before Tony Iommi powers in with a growling guitar line. John Lennon would undoubtedly have approved of Osbourne's seething critique of the music industry, summed up in the line: "Bog blast all of you." 4) ChangesSabbath revealed their soft underbelly on this 1972 piano ballad, written about a break-up that drummer Bill Ward was experiencing. "I thought the song was brilliant from the moment we first recorded it," said Osbourne, who later reworked it as a duet with his daughter, Kelly, and scored a UK number one the week before Christmas 2003. 5) Mr CrowleyInspired by notorious occultist Aleister Crowley, this track from 1980's Blizzard of Ozz allowed Osbourne to play up to his mock-satanic image. But is also helped him escape from the shadow of Black Sabbath, with a swirling, heavy-psychedelic sound, capped off by a blistering solo from his new foil, guitar virtuoso Randy listening: War Pigs and Iron Man are all-time classics; while Diary of a Madman and Suicide Solution are crucial chapters in Osbourne's solo songbook. Also check out Patient Number 9, the title track of his final album, which ended his career on a high.

James Bond star Rory Kinnear reveals extreme lengths the producers take to keep who will play the next 007 secret
James Bond star Rory Kinnear reveals extreme lengths the producers take to keep who will play the next 007 secret

Daily Mail​

timean hour ago

  • Daily Mail​

James Bond star Rory Kinnear reveals extreme lengths the producers take to keep who will play the next 007 secret

James Bond star Rory Kinnear has revealed the extreme lengths producers are going to in order to protect the franchise amid feverish speculation over who will play the next 007. The celebrated actor, who has played MI6 Chief of Staff Bill Tanner in four Bond films opposite Daniel Craig, has disclosed that scripts are being delivered by hand rather than emailed - a strict security measure introduced after the 2014 Sony Pictures hack that saw early drafts of Spectre leaked online. 'The script for James Bond is delivered by car,' Rory revealed on Jesse Tyler Ferguson's Dinner's On Me podcast. 'And if there are changes in the script, they are delivered by car.' The unprecedented leak more than a decade ago not only contained major spoilers for Spectre, but also the projected budget of $300 million made the film one of the most expensive to be made at the time. The cyber leak also contained celebrities' details and exchanges between executives slamming the ending, to have it rewritten multiple times. Producers were forced to immediately scrap digital distribution. Since then, the franchise has become infamous for its cloak-and-dagger approach - even among its own cast. Rory, 47, added of the script delivery strategy: 'They got burnt, so I understand why they do it.' The Olivier award winner starred in Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, Spectre and No Time To Die, and is one of the longest-standing actors in the current Bond universe. His comments come at a pivotal moment for Bond, as the franchise undergoes its most radical transformation in decades. Amazon, which bought MGM in an $8.5billion deal, now holds the creative reins, and has appointed Dune director Denis Villeneuve to take charge of Bond 26. The French-Canadian filmmaker, a self-confessed 'die-hard' Bond fan, promised to 'honour the tradition' of 007 while opening up the franchise 'to many new missions to come.' He is joined by powerhouse producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman, with Eon's Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson still involved behind the scenes. Casting, however, remains the hottest topic of conversation - and the race to replace Daniel Craig recently took a dramatic turn. While Kick-Ass and 28 Years Later star Aaron Taylor-Johnson, 35, remains the bookies' favourite, a surprise new contender has emerged: 37-year-old Scott Rose-Marsh. The relatively unknown British actor - whose credits include Wolves of War and Code of Silence - has leapt to eighth place on the Oddschecker leaderboard, overtaking heavyweights like Henry Cavill and Jack Lowden. Despite his lack of blockbuster experience, Rose-Marsh's sudden rise has set tongues wagging in industry circles. Sources say Villeneuve is keen to cast an actor who can grow into the role, rather than one already saturated by franchise fame. Tom Holland, Theo James, Aaron Pierre, Harris Dickinson, Jacob Elordi and James Norton also remain in the top ten, though insiders claim the director's shortlist has shifted several times since he took the reins earlier this summer. Meanwhile, on the Bond girl front, Euphoria and Anyone But You star Sydney Sweeney is widely tipped for a lead role. A source told The Sun: 'Sydney is the top name on the casting sheet for Bond. Denis believes she is hugely talented, as well as having an alluring appeal to younger generations — vital in modernising the franchise.' Sydney, 27, is reportedly close friends with Villeneuve and is being considered for a central role in the upcoming film - potentially as a high-stakes MI6 agent or a powerful femme fatale to match 007 blow for blow. Amazon is expected to officially unveil the cast later this year, with pre-production already underway and filming expected to begin in 2026. The release date is currently pegged for late 2027, though that may change depending on location availability. Bond purists were reportedly unsettled by news that filming may not take place in London due to a Central London ban next year. According to insiders, Liverpool is now a frontrunner to double for the capital - a choice previously used in major franchises such as The Batman and Captain America. A source said: 'This will no doubt irk Bond purists who already fear Amazon taking over the 007 franchise may lead to them making big changes. But Liverpool has become a well-known alternative to London for filmmakers. That doesn't necessarily mean the story is set there — but fans will spot it.'

Sheridan Smith reveals the kind message the late Dame Maggie Smith gave her when she 'spotted her nerves' while filming Quartet
Sheridan Smith reveals the kind message the late Dame Maggie Smith gave her when she 'spotted her nerves' while filming Quartet

Daily Mail​

timean hour ago

  • Daily Mail​

Sheridan Smith reveals the kind message the late Dame Maggie Smith gave her when she 'spotted her nerves' while filming Quartet

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