Daily Mail

Selina’s snub: Star savages ‘out of date’ BBC’s reunion bid

-

THE normally placid waters of BBC Breakfast have been whipped into a maelstrom by Selina Scott, who launched the show with the late Frank Bough. She’s rejected producers’ invitation to join in its much-hyped 40th anniversar­y celebratio­ns next week.

I hear that BBC bosses are asking producers why they failed to attract Selina onto their sofa in Salford, Greater Manchester, to join in with a look back at the opening-day broadcast. ‘It’s like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark,’ one senior executive fumes.

BBC Breakfast has been trailing its celebratio­n programme with frequent images of Selina’s disgraced copresente­r Frank Bough, who was sacked from the show after he was discovered in a Mayfair brothel. This promotion is understood to have scarcely helped entice Selina back.

Despite her antipathy towards Bough, who tried to seduce a fellow presenter on the programme and boasted about the size of his ‘manhood’, this is not the reason viewers will miss Selina when the programme is broadcast on Tuesday.

She tells me: ‘The trouble with the BBC is that it no longer inspires women like me. We are of interest only if we are forever tripping down the Yellow Brick Road, reminiscin­g about the past, or fronting cookery shows.

‘It’s got to be all memory lane or we’re history to them. Many women who continue to live challengin­g lives refuse to bend the knee to these out of date and, frankly, laughable TV stereotype­s. We prefer to look ahead rather than forever harking back.’ Selina was poached by the BBC from her job as anchor at ITN and paid a then-huge £1,000 a week, which led to questions in Parliament about her salary. At the time, she was the most glamorous woman on television and attracted as much press attention as Princess Diana, whom she was said to resemble.

I can also reveal another reason why Selina said ‘thanks, but no thanks’: after she had agreed, following much persuasion, to take part in Breakfast’s 25th anniversar­y, she so impressed the production team with her handling of the live show, they urged the editors to rehire her. Alas, this never happened.

‘It’s not that she feels rejected,’ a friend tells me. ‘She’s not looking back in anger, but they do say revenge is a dish best served cold.’

Selina tells me: ‘I shan’t be watching, but I wish the show well.’

 ?? ??
 ?? ?? Antipathy: Disgraced Frank Bough puckers up to a grimacing Scott
Antipathy: Disgraced Frank Bough puckers up to a grimacing Scott

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom