Broadcaster Danny Baker has been fired from his role at the BBC over a now-deleted tweet comparing Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's newborn son to a chimpanzee.
"Was supposed to be joke about Royals vs circus animals in posh clothes but interpreted as about monkeys & race, so rightly deleted."
Key points:
The widely circulated post showed an image of a couple holding hands with a chimpanzee wearing a hat and coat, alongside the caption: "Royal Baby leaves hospital".
The BBC Radio 5 Live broadcaster was accused of mocking the Duchess of Sussex's African-American heritage, with Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, who was born on Monday and will be seventh in line to the throne, becoming the first bi-racial British-American royal.
Following widespread criticism, Baker again took to Twitter in a bid to quell the controversy, apologizing for the "gag" post.
"Sincere apologies for the stupid unthinking gag pic earlier," he wrote.
"Royal watching not my forte."
Hours later, the 61-year-old confirmed he had been fired from BBC Radio 5 Live, in a call he described as "a masterclass of pompous faux-gravity".
"[The call] took a tone that said I actually meant that ridiculous tweet and the BBC must uphold blah blah blah," he tweeted.
"Literally threw me under the bus. Could hear the suits' knees knocking."
In a statement to BBC News, a spokesperson for the corporation said Baker's tweet was "a serious error of judgement" that goes against "the values we as a station aim to embody".
"Danny's a brilliant broadcaster but will no longer be presenting a weekly show with us," they added.
Since marrying into the royal family, Meghan Markle — whose mother Doria Ragland is African-American — has become a target of vicious online trolling, with the level of racist abuse so severe Kensington Palace was forced to set up new guidelines for its social media channels.
