The ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ house is now full, with a new batch of famous - well, semi-famous - contestants, and one of them is radio host James Whale.
James has been in the public eye for well over a decade, but it’s fair to say that he hasn’t always been popular.
After first attracting attention with a late ‘80s talk show, he went on to land a TalkSport show - and this is where things started to go wrong.
After earning a name for himself with a somewhat intolerant approach to taking calls from listeners, James was sacked in 2008, when Ofcom ruled that he had breached broadcasting guidelines, by telling people to vote for Boris Johnson in that year’s London mayoral elections.
Despite showing an awareness for the fact he was supposed to be impartial, he told listeners (via the Guardian): “[Boris] would make a fantastic leader of this city.
“People would have a far better quality of life, and for anybody that doesn’t vote for Boris, you’ll get what you deserve. Because what you’ll get is Ken Livingstone.”
The broadcasting watchdog’s ruling also saw TalkSport, then called Talk Radio, fined £20,000.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t long before James made his comeback, with a new show on London-based station LBC.
However, in 2013, it was announced that his contract would not be renewed, and a statement from LBC read: “We can confirm that James Whale has left LBC 97.3 at the end of his contract.
“We would like to thank him for all his hard work and commitment on the drive-time programme and we wish him all the best for the future.”
Ever since then, he’s made a series of appearances on regional radio stations, and has a BBC Radio Kent show, though that’s not exactly gone totally smoothly, as in April, he was accused of racism.
James mocked a woman’s accent during a show, but the BBC later defended him, stating: “The comments were made in a light-hearted manner in James Whale’s usual presenting style, playing on the friendly rivalry between Australia and Britain and the interviewee joined in the banter. No offence was intended.”
We’ve seen a number of previous housemates manage to reverse the public’s opinion of them by signing up for the show - Katie Hopkins, we’re looking at you - so could ‘CBB’ be about to change things for James? Watch this space...
