‘The most controversial I’m A Celeb star ever’: Everything awful Chris Moyles has done

Chris Moyles was a big part of the I’m A Celebrity jungle this year, and his casting came surrounded by controversy. Heading onto the show, he called himself the most notable radio broadcaster of his generation, but he’s already being called the most controversial campmate ever, and there’s a lot more to his career than success. Let’s just say, many disagree with him being in the jungle in the first place, and you can’t blame them.

For most of his career, Chris Moyles has had some sort of controversy surrounding him. So here is a full timeline of everything awful he’s ever done.

CW: Discussion of comments including topics of sexism, homophobia and racism.  

In 2002, Chris Moyles first hit controversy when he made comments about Charlotte Church

All of his controversy really began in 2002, when Chris Moyles made comments about singer Charlotte Church turning 16. The singer has been famous since she was really young, and upon her 16th birthday, Moyles said on his radio show he’d like to “lead her through the forest of sexuality now that she had reached 16.”

The BBC was forced to issue a statement and the Broadcasting Standards Commission said “the explicit sexual content and humour had exceeded acceptable boundaries for the time of transmission”.

He was accused of a ‘racist moment’ in 2006

In 2006, during an interview, Halle Berry accused Moyles of having a “racist moment” on air. She was being interviewed alongside Hugh Jackman by Moyles, promoting an X-Men movie. Hugh Jackman had joked that Moyles could be his body double if he were to be cast as James Bond, and Moyles then yelled: “Put your hands up in the air!”

Confused, Hugh then replied: “Are you some kind of Brooklyn Bond?” And Chris Moyles said: “I’m a black American guy. A big, fat, black guy,” before he said: “Put your hands up in the air. I don’t wanna be shooting yo ass.” Halle put the conversation to a close, and interjected asking if he was “having a racist moment here?” Chris denied it, and then, notably once Halle had already left, told her to “get over” herself.

Moyles was also accused of homophobia in May 2006

Chris Moyles was also caught on air using “gay” as a derogatory term for something he didn’t like. On his show he had been discussing ringtones, and said: “I don’t want that one, it’s gay.” The moment received lots of complaints to the BBC, including from the charity Stonewall, which said: “Chris Moyles is not helping young LGBT people struggling to come out through his comments”. The charity then named him “bully of the year” at its annual awards. The BBC cleared Moyles of any wrongdoing.

Also in 2006, Chris Moyles received Ofcom complaints for sexism

In 2006, Chris Moyles received Ofcom complaints for his radio show, after her referred to his female listeners as “dirty whores”. The topic of the show was strange enough, he was asking women to let him know if they’d ever taken a wee in the shower, and when women texted in he said: “Thank you very much ladies, I shouldn’t really say ladies – you all pee in the shower you dirty whores.”

In 2008, Moyles was accused of glamourising binge drinking

In 2008, Moyles boasted he drank five pints of lager a day, which was met by experts saying he was glamourising binge drinking. He said it was “just banter”.

He made an Auschwitz joke

In 2009, Chris Moyles appeared on Who Do You Think You Are? – and was immediately hit with controversy…again. “I went off to Ireland and other places to film and unlike a lot of the Who Do You Think You Are? shows I didn’t go to Auschwitz,” he said. “Pretty much everyone goes there whether or not they’re Jewish. They just seem to pass through there on their way to Florida.”

The BBC said: “Anyone who listens to the Chris Moyles Show will know he has an irreverent style. However, we regret that on this occasion his comments were misjudged and we are speaking to Chris and his team about them.”

In 2010, Chris Moyles went on a rant about his pay at the BBC and two years later, he was sacked

In 2010, Chris Moyles went on a 30-minute rant during his radio show to talk about how angry he was about his pay. Following the news bulletin one morning, he said: “I’m very, very angry, very, very angry at being put into this position. I can’t tell you how furious I am. I haven’t been paid since the end of July and no one cares about it. No one’s bothered.”

In 2012, eight years after he began presenting the Radio 1 Breakfast Show, Chris Moyles was sacked and replaced by Nick Grimshaw. He claimed he was sacked by Radio 1 controller Ben Cooper a year before he planned to announce his resignation from the station live on air.

“Ben called me in for a meeting and said ‘It’s time. We need to wrap this up’,” Moyles claimed. “I’d done eight-and-a-half years. I’d decided at nine-and-half-years I’d turn the mic on one morning and say ‘When my contract runs out at Christmas, I’m not going to re-sign. I’m off.’ That would have been ten years on the Breakfast Show. So my reaction when Ben told me was ‘You scumbag, you’ve just blown my announcement by a year.’”

Ben Cooper never commented on the claims.

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Featured image via ITV / Beretta/Sims/Shutterstock.