Richard Bacon’s life and career from Blue Peter sacking to BBC Question Time panel

© Yui Mok/PA Wire Richard Bacon started his career at BBC Radio Nottingham

Television and radio broadcaster Richard Bacon was among the panellists on this week’s episode of Question Time. The presenter shot to fame – and infamy – on L!ve TV and Blue Peter in the 90s and has gone on to have a hugely successful career in TV and radio.

Viewers saw him making an appearance on Question Time on Thursday (September 29) alongside Karan Bilimoria, Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, MPs Paul Scully and Bridget Phillipson, and journalist Anne McElvoy. Presenter Fiona Bruce said it followed “one of the most extraordinary weeks I can remember in politics”.

The panel was due to discuss the turmoil created by Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini budget. Both the Chancellor and Prime Minister Liz Truss have insisted their £45 billion package of tax cuts is the “right plan” to get the economy moving despite chaos on the financial markets and fears of rocketing mortgage bills.

Here is everything you need to know about Richard Bacon’s life and career.

Early years in Nottingham and Blue Peter

Richard was born in November 1975 and grew up in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. He began his career at BBC Radio Nottingham and went on to spend three years working at the station as a news reporter.

He joined L!ve TV as a reporter in 1996. The role saw him banned from the State Opening of Parliament, as well as having beer thrown over him by Blur singer Damon Albarn outside a nightclub.

He then moved to the Blue Peter studio alongside the likes of Konnie Huq. However his time on the show ended after just 18 months in 1998.

Why was Richard Bacon sacked from Blue Peter?

Then 22, Richard handed in his Blue Peter badge after a News of the World report showed he had used cocaine. The then head of BBC Children’s programmes Lorraine Heggessey went on air to explain why Richard had been axed from the programme.

She told viewers: “Richard has not only let himself and the team of Blue Peter down, but he’s also let all of you down badly. So, we have decided that Richard cannot present on Blue Peter and he agrees that that is the right decision.”

Richard has since spoken openly about his sacking. Speaking to the i, he said: “I was publicly shamed after Blue Peter. If this happened now, I think I’d still have lost my job, but the response would have been even louder.

“Back then it was down to the good graces of the newspapers to decide if you’re going to be publicly shamed. These days, it’s down to the actual public to decide who gets publicly shamed.”

He has never hidden away from the scandal, with his agent’s profile of him wryly noting: “Richard spent his formative years on Blue Peter and was the first children’s presenter ever to be fired going overnight from being a successful children’s television presenter that nobody had heard of to an unsuccessful children’s television presenter that everyone had heard of.”

After Blue Peter

Richard’s career survived the setback and he went on to appear on programmes including Richard Bacon’s Beer & Pizza Club on ITV4, The Wright Stuff and a show on BBC Radio 5 Live. He left the station in 2014 and moved to Los Angeles.

He has since forged a career working across factual TV and radio on both sides of the Atlantic. He also develops new television formats, and sold his gameshow idea The Hustler to ABC in the US after it was turned down by the BBC.

In 2016, he became the host of National Geographic’s Explorer, a new US chat show offering an alternative take on the week’s events. One episode saw him hiking through Yosemite National Park with President Barack Obama.

He also fronted 30 Something, an interview series for AOL. His other factual TV credits include BBC1’s Panorama: Who Will Win the Election? (2015) and Benefits Britain, a one-off debate show and How Rich Are You? (Channel 4) which assessed the growing gap between rich and poor in the UK.

In 2013 he presented the one-off documentary Frontline Afghanistan, which followed Prince Harry on tour in Afghanistan. Richard also wrote and presented The Anti-Social Network (BBC3) on internet trolls. He is a regular host for quiz and music shows and other credits include Eternal Glory, Show Me The Telly (ITV), The Big Painting Challenge (BBC1) and Hidden Talent for Channel 4.

His agency profile says: “Richard has covered huge events and state occasions and been on air to break massive news stories including the death of Margaret Thatcher and Michael Jackson. He has even appeared as himself in an episode of The Thick of It.”

Near-death experience

Richard had a near-death experience in 2018, where he was put into an induced coma from pneumonia. Doctors treating him at one point believed he was going to die.

He has said he thinks about the experience every day, telling the Guardian it “took death from being a kind of slightly abstract concept to not an abstract concept”.

Personal life

Richard married Rebecca McFarlane in 2008. She is the daughter of former Barclays chairman John McFarlane.

They have two children, Arthur, born in 2011 and Ivy, born in 2014. They are now mostly based in London after several years in Los Angeles.

Who else was on the Question Time panel tonight?

The other Question Time guests taking part in the show on Thursday were Conservative MP and Minister for Local Government Paul Scully, Bridget Phillipson, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Education, Karan Bilimoria, Chancellor of the University of Birmingham and the founder and chairman of Cobra Beer and Anne McElvoy, the executive editor of The Economist.

Question Time airs on Thursdays at 10.40pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer