Christopher Eccleston has revealed he was forced to take legal action against the BBC after stepping down from ‘Doctor Who’, for “attributing quotes to him”.
He played the Time Lord for one series in 2005, after which David Tennant took over, and in recent years, has disclosed that he had a somewhat difficult time on the sci-fi show.
Sharing new details about his exit, he has now revealed that he even took legal action against the BBC, after they released a statement on his behalf that he hadn’t signed off on.
Speaking to BBC (awks) Radio 2, Christopher said: “I made an agreement that I would say nothing about my departure, and I honoured that, because I was looking after the production.
“And then the BBC issued a statement, they put a quote from me that they had written saying why I’d left, because I was tired, which any producer reading that [would think] ‘Well we won’t give Chris Eccleston a job because he gets tired’. So I threatened legal action and I got an apology printed in all the newspapers.”
He added: “The BBC had to make a statement apologising for attributing quotes to me. Nobody will go on record as saying this but my agent said ‘You need to get out of town because you’re not going to work’.
“I kept my word and they didn’t keep their word, so I took them to court.”
HuffPost UK has contacted the BBC for comment.
Earlier this year, Christopher suggested the corporation had “blacklisted” him after he stepped down from ‘Doctor Who’, later vowing he would never work with showrunner Russell T Davies again.
Since Christopher’s exit, David Tennant, Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi have taken over as the lead in ‘Doctor Who’, while Jodie Whittaker is currently at the helm of the Tardis, the first woman in the show’s history to play The Doctor.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story left out Matt Smith, in the list of actors who have played The Doctor.
