Huw Edwards was 'potential replacement for Piers Morgan' on GMB before scandal
ITV bosses had reportedly lined up Huw Edwards as a potential replacement for Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain before the BBC scandal against him broke.
The 62-year-old was suspended from his role as the face of BBC News at Ten in July following allegations of sexual misconduct, including paying a then teenager thousands of pounds for explicit images.
It came days after allegations were published in The Sun newspaper which claimed an unnamed BBC presenter had paid a young person £35,000 over the course of three years for sexually explicit pictures. The incident is said to have taken place when the person was aged 17 until the age of 20.
Although the young person rubbished the allegations through his lawyer, claiming they were “totally wrong and there was no truth in it”, the controversy rumbled on as the mother who made the allegations stood by her claims.
Since then, four more people have spoken out to document their own experiences with the presenter, alleged to include one person in their early 20s who Edwards is said to have met on a dating app. Another claimed to have received inappropriate messages on Instagram when they were 17.
Corrie's Sue Cleaver says I'm A Celebrity stint helped her to push boundaries
Huw Edwards reportedly had talks with ITV to move to Good Morning Britain (BBC)Edwards was later identified by his wife Vicky Flind, who issued a statement saying her husband is “suffering from serious mental health issues” and “receiving in-patient care where he will stay for the foreseeable”.
She added that “once well, Huw intends to respond to the stories being published”. The BBC are currently conducting an internal investigation after police found no criminal wrongdoing, but it is still thought to be at the “fact-finding” stage, suggesting there is no imminent conclusion in sight.
One senior BBC journalist is said to have told The Guardian: “No one expects him to come back." Edwards, still believed to be on his £435,000-a-year salary, is reportedly not responding to messages from close colleagues who claim they “haven’t heard from him in weeks”.
After a row over equal pay at the BBC in 2018, Edwards – still one of their highest paid stars - took a voluntary pay cut as a “gesture to female colleagues”, but negotiations over pay reportedly led to him considering leaving the BBC.
Piers Morgan quit GMB following his on-air spat with Alex Beresford about Harry and Meghan (ITV)Last September he was photographed leaving the offices of Global, the parent company of radio stations LBC and Capital – the BBC’s biggest rivals. The Guardian reports sources at ITV said he was also briefly considered as a potential replacement for Piers Morgan as host of Good Morning Britain.
Piers sensationally quit the show in 2021 in a row with colleague Alex Beresford over Meghan Markle. The broadcaster refused to apologise for saying he was "sickened" by Harry and Meghan's interview with Oprah Winfrey, which he called a "two hour trashathon" as he accused the couple of likening the Royal Family to white supremacists.
But the newspaper claims the GMB job talks didn’t go any further as “Huw insisted he would need to keep doing his BBC royal coverage”, according to a source said to have knowledge of the conversations, and didn’t think it would be “feasible” to work across two major broadcasters. The Mirror has reached out to ITV for further comment on this story.
In the end, Edwards signed a new deal with the BBC just months before being suspended over the recent scandal and approached for comment from The Sun newspaper before they published their story on the then-unnamed presenter. At this point in time, it is unclear if Edwards will try to launch a comeback or will now consider leaving the BBC quietly.
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
