Richard Bacon is glad social media wasn't around when he was sacked from 'Blue Peter'.
Richard Bacon
The 45-year-old presenter was fired by the BBC in 1998 after he was pictured taking cocaine, and he's grateful Twitter didn't launch for another seven years.
Commenting on "cancel culture" and plans for a TV show based on the scandal, he told The Sun newspaper: "I want to make a show where we pick a handful of people who were cancelled and debate whether it was right or wrong.
"Cancel culture is about rushing to judgment. I’d love us all to slow down, go, ‘Stop, let’s think about this. Does this person really deserve never to have a career?’
“My experience on 'Blue Peter' would have been very different if social media had been around. The intensity of the storm is even more fierce and more frightening now.
“If you’re caught up in a massive scandal there are probably tens of thousands of tweets about you.”
Richard admitted he has no reservations joking about his past or addressing it in interviews.
He explained: "I don’t mind talking about 'Blue Peter' or the cocaine. It’s all such a prominent part of my past.
"But I’m very comfortable making jokes about it. I just don’t care. It doesn’t make any difference to anything.”
The star - who is a producer for Stacey Dooley's new BBC show 'This Is My House' - also reflected on 'The Big Breakfast', and revealed he'd love to come back for the Channel 4 programme's 30th anniversary even if some things would have to change.
He added: "I used to do a feature called Streaky Bacon. I’d knock on your door at 7.10am and say, ‘Do you want to win your weight in bacon? You just need to streak down your street’ - and they’d almost always say yes.
“That person had a plastic piece of bacon to cover their penis and would streak in front of their neighbours.
“That’s bold and ridiculous and stupid and wonderful. No one’s going to do that on 'Good Morning Britain'. Can you even do that any more?”
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