In a Wednesday appearance on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Middleton denied making any intentionally offensive comments and blamed Channel 4’s decision on the increasing power of ‘woke’ political correctness.
Middleton also claimed that he had already decided to walk away from the show and that Channel 4’s decision to public disavow him was a public relations move to sweep in first.
Middleton had tweeted last June that Black Lives Matter and the English Defence League – a right-wing social movement hostile to immigrants – were “not welcome on our streets” after clashes between the two, calling them “absolute scum.” In the interview, Middleton pointed that the tweet wasn’t worded correctly, and that he acknowledged that.
In his controversial Covid-19 posts a year ago, Middleton advised followers to act according to their conscience and not the government regulations. He later admitted he was ill informed about the severity of the pandemic.
“All these excuses that are coming out, everything like inappropriate comments… It’s like, you’re on ‘SAS: Who Dares Wins’, you know? We say inappropriate things, we do inappropriate things,” Middleton told ITV’s Piers Morgan on Wednesday. “If you get offended by them, then so be it. The course is a hardcore course. It’s hardcore, it’s gritty, you’re going to see inappropriate things.”
Noting that a soldier’s humour is “different” and the way that they “deal with situations is different,” Middleton alleged that they were originally allowed to be themselves on set, but “over the years PC patrol have kicked in, the woke patrol have kicked in, to the point where we can’t say anything. We can’t be ourselves.”
In its statement this week, Channel 4 claimed to have split with Middleton due to “his personal conduct,” adding that the channel’s and the veteran’s “views and values” are not aligned.
‘SAS: Who Dares Wins’ is a show where Special Forces veterans put contestants through the elite Special Air Service’s (SAS) gruelling selection process until a winner comes out on top. Middleton had hosted the show since 2015.
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