I was sacked by BBC over Zoom while on family holiday, says Jermaine Jenas – it was just grim… my wife had no idea
JERMAINE Jenas has told how he was sacked by the BBC over Zoom while on a family holiday.
During a getaway to Marbella, Spain, Jenas sat in on a call listening to bosses read out X-rated messages that his wife Ellie had no idea about.
Allegations had been brought to the ex-footballer five days prior – with him keeping quiet in a desperate bid to “find a way out of this mess”.
But after learning he had been fired, Jenas was forced to come clean when Ellie believed he would be going to work on The One Show on Monday.
Jenas told The Sun: “It was just a grim situation. You’re having to sit there and listen to what you’ve said. I’m not proud of anything.
“It’s embarrassing, and obviously there’s four people there on a Zoom call, basically, just listening to all of this, and reading out my messages.
“I think I was in shock at the time, there was a lot to process.
“But I’m the married one, I’m at fault, and I was sort of playing this blame game in my head.
“The overriding panic by a mile was that I could lose my family.
“There’s something in me that’s praying there is some level of mercy or understanding of the fact we’re human beings and we all make mistakes, some bigger than others and mine is a big mistake.
“But that didn’t happen, and yeah the whole situation was pretty hellish — and right now I’m not quite sure what I’m feeling, but I don’t think I have ever been lower.”
Jenas, who also has a teenage daughter from a previous relationship, said Ellie has kicked him out of the bedroom the couple share at their £1million home in Hertfordshire.
Tearfully, he admitted he did not know if Ellie, who he shares three kids with, would forgive him.
He added: “I was obviously hoping that I maybe would have got a suspension of some sort.
“I had to tell [Ellie] by Monday evening because I knew then that I’d been fired.
“I just said, ‘I’ve been sacked from the BBC’.
“She said, ‘What for?’, and I said, ‘For sending text messages that weren’t appropriate to two girls’.
“Ellie is absolutely raging. She’s human.
“When I see her now, she is just making sure the children are OK.
“We’ve not really spoken properly since. She’s absolutely raging.”
I wasn’t going through some kind of BBC vault trying to get women’s numbers. I’m obviously going to say I’m not a sex pest.
Jenas
Jenas denied being a sex pest and insisted he had done nothing illegal.
But he apologised if he made the women he had messaged feel uncomfortable.
Jenas was sacked by the BBC on Monday, five days after the initial HR consultation process began.
The BBC’s Director of Sport Alex Kay-Jelski informed all staff of the former Spurs star’s sudden dismissal only after The Sun had broken the story online.
Jenas insists he thinks this “says everything about the BBC’s handling of it all really”.
“FRANTICALLY” SEXTED OVER 24 HOURS
While former colleagues, both on and off screen, have been advised not to contact him due to the legal situation, he says several well-known faces and production staff have offered their support.
Jenas says he knows one of the women involved through work and she gave him her mobile number at a boozy work event.
They then “frantically” sexted over 24 hours but he claims it ended amicably.
Jenas insists: “These were two consenting adults I was speaking to. With one she made it clear she was interested.
“I don’t want to start going down the ‘who pursued who’ road, but when people are saying things that are wrong and false information is being spread, I do have to kind of defend my space.
“In that particular instance, there was an adult conversation that took place in a bar in London where that person made it very clear that they had an attraction to me.
“Yes there was alcohol involved but I take full responsibility.
“I feel people don’t know the truth and are forming opinions about me that aren’t accurate.
“I wasn’t going through some kind of BBC vault trying to get women’s numbers. I’m obviously going to say I’m not a sex pest.
“These were consenting adults I was texting.”
Speaking from the West Lodge Park hotel in North London, Jenas denied sending any sexual pictures or videos.
He said: “That was not the case.”
He says his anxiety has spiralled, and he is suffering with insomnia. Jenas has parted ways with his long-standing agents, MC Saatchi, after they broke the news to him about the damaging allegations.
The BBC has recently reformed workplace culture guidelines after the Strictly Come Dancing and Huw Edwards scandals.