Sir Michael Palin quit BBC in 2012. Now, he has shedding light on his departure.
The Monty Python star hosted a series of travel documentaries from 1989 to 2012. Since leaving the broadcaster he has worked for Channel 5 on a number of travel programmes, including a recent trip through Nigeria.
The star has now opened up about why he chose to wave goodbye BBC…
Sir Michael Palin on quitting BBC
“There was the feeling that the BBC wanted to interfere a little more. They wanted to control it a little more,” he told Radio Times. “They had this new way of presenting shows — which I would get absolutely, desperately frustrated with — where they would show, in the first five minutes, all the great moments of what was to come because this captured viewers. Otherwise, as soon as they see Michael Palin, they’ll switch off. The BBC were going in a different direction and presentation was going in a different direction.”
ED! has contacted BBC for comment.
At the time, Sir Michael Palin explained that he “felt very let down” after the network’s editorial standards team upheld a viewer complaint. This complaint, as reported by The Independent, accused Palin’s New Europe series of oversimplifying the Balkan war.
Despite the career turbulence, Sir Michael Palin has insisted that he does plan to continue travelling.
Speaking of his volume of published diaries, There and Back, Michael told Radio Times: “In the diaries I talk a lot about being in my sixties. Well, I’m now 81, and I’m planning another series.”
Sir Michael Palin on rejecting Strictly Come Dancing
Although Michael bid farewell to the broadcaster, it seems they were keen to have him back. In fact, the TV legend has admitted that Strictly Come Dancing have asked him to star on the show and when probed about whether he thought twice about turning them down, he appeared pretty set on staying far away from the dance floor.
“Not at all, I just said no,” he said of rejecting the programme: “I thought there’s another pathway there, and that pathway is being a warm, joyful, much-loved celebrity who will join in public life generally. And I realised I’m not that. I’m a bit of a loner, really. Just being a celebrity or being a personality doesn’t interest me that much.”
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