Presenter Dan Wootton has been suspended by GB News over feedback Laurence Fox made a couple of feminine journalist on his present.

The broadcaster says it’s conducting a “full investigation” after Wootton didn’t condemn Fox for asking: “Who’d shag that?” about political corresponent Ava Evans.

Wootton, 40, can be at the moment suspended from MailOnline the place he has a daily freelance column whereas his ex-employer The Sun investigates claims he used a pseudonym and supplied colleagues cash for sexual materials.

Moved to the UK at 21

Dan Wootton was born to British mother and father in New Zealand in 1983. His mom was born in Essex, whereas his father grew up on a British Army base in Malta.

He acquired a level in media research and political science earlier than getting his first journalism job on the Wellington broadsheet The Dominion Post as an leisure columnist.

While working for the paper he additionally acquired a TV reporter job on TVNZ 1’s Good Morning present.

A British passport holder, Wootton moved to the UK on the age of 21 the place he labored for numerous commerce publications earlier than getting a job at Broadcast journal – targeted on UK TV and radio.

According to an interview with a New Zealand expat web site, he spent his first few years within the UK couch browsing and flat sharing in west London whereas making an attempt to make strikes into monetary journalism.

But finally he discovered himself drawn to showbiz and three years later secured a job with the now-defunct News of the World.

Before it was shut down amid telephone hacking allegations in 2011, he had stints as each its TV and showbusiness editor.

Wootton later informed the Leveson Inquiry he by no means hacked telephones whereas at The News of the World, claiming he did not typically write about superstar complainants comparable to Hugh Grant as a result of he “didn’t seem to enjoy his job and was pretty miserable”.

Read extra:
Reaction and what Fox said – in full
Who is Laurence Fox?

Lord Justice Leveson questioned whether or not it was the media intrusion Grant resented – and never his superstar standing.

Without singling out people, he concluded that telephone hacking was widespread throughout the UK’s tabloid press and that celebrities’ households had their lives “destroyed” by their angle to privateness.

Having made a reputation for himself with Rupert Murdoch’s titles, he grew to become a columnist for the Daily Mail, earlier than returning to News Group Newspapers to work at The Sun in 2013.

When he joined the newspaper he additionally got here out as homosexual, tweeting: “If the media hides gay relationships then how will they ever be normalised?”

The success of his Sun column noticed him promoted to its showbiz ‘Bizarre’ part editor the next 12 months and safe common appearances on ITV’s Lorraine till 2019.

He additionally had his personal present ‘Dan’s Dilemma’s on the Murdoch-owned TalkRadio till he left the group for the Mail and GB News in the beginning of 2021.

HIV criticism, Megxit and Depp ‘spouse beater’ claims

Wootton’s provocative and self-proclaimed ‘anti-woke’ reporting type has seen him courtroom controversy a number of instances over the previous decade.

In 2015 his Sun article “Hollywood HIV Panic”, which later transpired to be in regards to the actor Charlie Sheen, attracted widespread criticism for perpetuating stigma towards individuals with the situation.

The British Medical Journal and charity the Terrence Higgins Trust branded it “irresponsible”.

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In 2020 he was the primary particular person to report Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s choice to step down from royal duties.

He claimed he had spoken to the Sussexes’ spokesperson and given them 10 days’ discover earlier than breaking the story.

Sources near them later claimed they had been pressured to go public with their plans prematurely attributable to stress placed on them by The Sun.

Though he didn’t identify Wootton personally, in his 2023 biography, Spare, Prince Harry described the paper’s showbiz editor – which on the time was Wootton – behind the story as a “sad little man”.

“He [the unnamed editor] refashioned himself into some sort of quasi royal correspondent, largely on the strength of his secret relationship with one particularly close friend of Willy’s comms secretary – who fed him trivial (and mostly fake) gossip,” Prince Harry wrote in his e-book.

In 2020, Wootton additionally discovered himself on the centre of one of many greatest superstar courtroom circumstances in many years.

Actor Johnny Depp sued News Group Newspapers on the High Court in London over Wootton’s 2018 story that described him as a “wife beater” in relation to his position within the Fantastic Beasts movie.

After particulars of his unstable relationship with US actress Amber Heard got here out in courtroom, the choose concluded that the outline was “substantially accurate on the balance of probabilities”.

During the coronavirus pandemic, some raised alarm bells about Wootton’s alleged pedalling of conspiracy theories.

Labour MP Chris Bryant described him as “dangerous” over the usage of his platform to precise views on herd immunity and the anti-vax motion.

‘Used pretend identify to elicit sexual content material from ex-colleagues’

This 12 months the Byline Times printed a sequence of articles about Wootton, claiming he had used pretend identities to trick males, together with former colleagues, into sending him sexual materials.

The claims, which relate to a interval between 2008 and 2018 – when Wootton labored for The News of the World and The Sun, noticed Wootton’s MailOn-line column paused.

He has written for the net news outlet since 2021. His final article was printed on 29 June.

Wootton admitted he had made “errors of judgement” prior to now when the claims got here to mild however vehemently denied legal allegations as “simply untrue”.

News Group Newspapers is investigating.

A spokesperson for MailOn-line’s writer DMG Media stated: “The allegations are obviously serious but also complex and historic and there is an independent investigation underway at the media group which employed him during the relevant period.

“In the meantime, his freelance column with MailOn-line has been paused.”

GB News didn’t remark and continued to air his nightly present, however suspended him over Laurence Fox’s feedback.

Wootton had beforehand stated on Twitter: “I want to reiterate my regret over last night’s exchange with Laurence on GB News. Having looked at the footage, I can see how inappropriate my reaction to his totally unacceptable remarks appears to be and want to be clear that I was in no way amused by the comments.”