Jonathan Ross returns to Radio Two with sick jokes about sex with a pensionerJonathan Ross risked the wrath of BBC executives on his return to Radio 2 yesterday by making crude remarks about sleeping with an 80-year-old woman.
Ten minutes after the live show began, Ross and his co-presenter Andy Davies talked about how they had spent the past three months, when Ross was suspended from the BBC.
Davies said that he had been doing some DIY at his house in Spain, and referred to an ‘older woman’ who lives nearby who ‘keeps trying to kiss me...she must be about 80, I reckon’.
Ross replied: ‘Oh God. I think you should, just for charity. Give her one last night, will you? One last night before the grave. Would it kill you?’
It also became clear yesterday that in the 35 hours between Ross’s Friday-night BBC1 chat show being recorded and broadcast, executives carefully edited the content to ensure the controversial host put across an appropriate balance of contrition and wit.
Ross was suspended without his £6million-a-year salary after he and comedian Russell Brand left obscene messages on the answerphone of
78-year-old actor Andrew Sachs during Brand’s Radio 2 show in October.
Last night Conservative MP Philip Davies, who sits on the Commons Culture Select Committee, said of his remarks about the elderly woman: ‘Everyone knows what Jonathan Ross is like, particularly now.
'Certainly the BBC are well aware. If you employ Ross, this is what you can expect from him and this is what you’ll always get from him. My view is that he should have been sacked three months ago.’
John Beyer, director of pressure group Mediawatch UK, said: ‘It’s ultimately for BBC director-general Mark Thompson to say whether this sort of innuendo and suggestion is what he had in mind when he gave Jonathan Ross his last chance back in October. The BBC has to establish boundaries of acceptability.’
Ross arrived at the Radio 2 studios in Central London yesterday wearing sunglasses and a dark three-piece suit with brown leather cuffs. He carried a messenger bag by designer label Prada, costing about £210.
During his three-hour programme, he appeared to make light of the controversial subject of teenage girls – including his daughter – watching men kiss each other.
As he interviewed fellow BBC presenter Graham Norton, who is starring in a West End adaptation of gay comedy La Cage Aux Folles, Ross said that his daughter, who is 16, was ‘very much into gay culture generally’.
He added: ‘I think, like lots of young girls, she likes seeing boys kissing, for some reason. They love seeing boys kissing.’
Sounding surprised, Norton asked: ‘Really?’
Ross said: ‘Yeah. It’s the big thing, Graham.’
A BBC spokesman said it had received 18 complaints about the show. And a further 166 people have protested to the BBC about Ross being chosen to present the Bafta awards next month.
In a statement, the BBC said: ‘Some viewers are unhappy that Jonathan Ross will be presenting this year’s Baftas. This will be his third year presenting the awards, and the decision to use him as the host was taken long before his suspension.’
BBC1 executives cut several crude remarks from his Friday-night chat show before it was broadcast.
The studio audience heard Ross tell his guest Tom Cruise, in response to the actor’s admission of a hectic schedule: ‘You should get yourself suspended. Russell Brand is in town tonight. Let’s go out in town and get suspended.’
Ross made several other references to Brand during the recording, and images of Brand appeared on screens, but his name or face were not deemed fit to appear in the version that was broadcast.
One audience member said: ‘I was amazed when I walked into the studio to see a huge screen suspended above the stage showing Jonathan Ross interviewing Russell Brand.
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