Paul Gambaccini: The BBC singled me out as a ‘potential security threat’ for being gay
Radio 2 DJ Paul Gambaccini has revealed how the BBC marked his personnel file with a “Christmas tree” symbol in order to warn others that he was gay.
The 64-year-old explained to the Telegraph: “I am of the generation whose BBC personnel files had Christmas trees on them. It meant you were ‘as camp as Christmas’ and thus a potential security risk.
“The country was still obsessed with the Cambridge spies. To some people, a gay man was a potential security threat and might betray his country to the Soviet Union. Utter balderdash! I could only laugh uproariously.”
Gambaccini entered into a civil partnership with his partner Christopher Sherwood last year. He has never denied his sexuality.
“I was never ‘in’,” Gambaccini said, clarifying that he was not going to waste time and energy pretending to be someone he is not.
He added: “I came to realise that if somebody claims they’ve had hundreds of women, they’re probably gay. This is not true of Russell Brand and Simon Cowell, by the way.”
The DJ stirred up controversy last year when he made remarks about Jimmy Savile in which he claimed that the late DJ was a known necrophiliac.
In 2009, Gambaccini spoke out against Chris Moyles who he claimed promoted homophobic bullying. “Moyles encourages bullying and causes human suffering. It brings us all down in this world. We have a lot of responsibility”, he said.
The BBC has also recently come under criticism from Whitehall, who questioned why BBC News, alongside Channel 4 News and other media outlets, failed to give sufficient coverage of last week’s historic passing of same-sex marriage for England and Wales in Parliament.
A BBC spokesperson told PinkNews.co.uk: “Over the past few months the BBC has extensively followed and reported the various stages of the same-sex marriage bill across TV and radio news bulletins and online, including the key second reading vote on 4th June, which was covered in detail on the News at Ten. This week the final Commons vote was marked on the BBC News Channel, News Online and radio bulletins – while the formal moment of Royal Assent was reported online.”
