BBC radio presenter fired over Baby Sussex tweet

A BBC radio presenter has sent a crudely-worded message to the broadcaster after it fired him over a "gag" photo mocking the newborn son of Prince Harry and wife Meghan.

On Wednesday, Danny Baker, 61, tweeted a black and white photo of a chimpanzee walking down the stairs in a suit, holding hands with a posh English couple.

"Royal baby leaves hospital,” he captioned the image, which was quickly slammed for being racist. Baker later deleted the photo, claiming he hadn't realised the connotations.

Speaking to reporters outside his home after the BBC terminated his role on Thursday, Baker re-enacted the conversation between himself and his former employer.

"'The BBC must uphold the honour of blah-blah-blah'," he recalled, impersonating the British broadcaster in an exaggeratedly pompous voice.

"Basically, they said to me, 'You meant that tweet'. I said to them, 'You think so?'" [They said] 'Well, we found it...' and I said, 'F--- you'."

The 5Live DJ also tweeted about the phone call that resulted in his firing, calling it a "masterclass of pompous faux-gravity".

"Took a tone that said I actually meant that ridiculous tweet and the BBC must uphold blah blah blah. Literally threw me under the bus. Could hear the suits knees knocking," he wrote.

Baker initially shared an apology for his original post on Twitter after it attracted backlash, saying the racist undertones of the image "never occurred" to him.

"Sorry my gag pic of the little fella in the posh outfit has whipped some up. Never occurred to me because, well, mind not diseased," he wrote.

"Soon as those good enough to point out it’s possible connotations got in touch, down it came. And that's it. Now stand by for sweary football tweets."

In another tweet he said: "Connection never occurred to me till people were good enough to enlighten. Little fella in posh suit. Anyway, deleted now."

And another stating: "Once again. Sincere apologies for the stupid unthinking gag pic earlier.

"Was supposed to be joke about Royals vs circus animals in posh clothes but interpreted as about monkeys & race, so rightly deleted. Royal watching not my forte."

However, this wasn't enough to save his job, with the presenter tweeting the news on Thursday morning and a BBC spokesperson confirming he'd been fired over the incident.

"This was a serious error of judgement and goes against the values we as a station aim to embody," a BBC spokesman told Sky News.

"Danny's a brilliant broadcaster but will no longer be presenting a weekly show with us."

"Would have used same stupid pic for any other Royal birth or Boris Johnson kid or even one of my own," Baker told Sky on Thursday morning.

"It's a funny image. (Though not of course in that context.) Enormous mistake, for sure. Grotesque. Anyway, here's to ya Archie, Sorry mate," he added.

Baker had been with Radio 5Live since 2009.