Hello and welcome back to another episode of I'm coming out the podcast were well-known people. Tell me Johnny Harvey. They're coming out stories. And today's guest is Andy West Andy hit the headlines in 2015 when he resigned from his role as a BBC journalist. It's in protest at the organization's nomination of the openly homophobic and misogynistic boxer Tyson Fury for their sports Personality of the Year Awards. He subsequently became a contestant on the 17th series of big brother and finished fourth overall. He now appears regularly on our screens on shows such as this morning Jeremy Vine Show on Channel 5. And of course locking horns with Pierce Morgan on Good Morning Britain. He is also a highly acclaimed journalist. He's written For the independent the gay times and Gracia and is currently working on his debut novel. I went to his London flat and after Andy's lengthy washing machine delivery and my technical issues. We finally settled down to chat about why and he felt he had no option but to resign from the BBC the homophobia he experience working in the media is sheltered upbringing and he's desperate bids to fit in at school the confusion. He felt over a sexuality and The experience that made him realize he was gay and that he had to come out and why he still isn't proud to be a gay man, and he is an incredibly principles individual and I think he secretly likes to be a bit controversial. So I'm really glad I got the chance to interview them and have them on the podcast. Please leave a rating or review on iTunes is it really helps me? It helps other people to discover the podcast. I hope you enjoy this episode. Thanks for listening. And here it is. So I'm the all start with what you are arguably best known for you left your job with the bead in early 2016 because of your opposition to Tyson Fury's nomination for sports person of the year award. So as most of us already know Tyson, he's got quite the reputation for being very homophobic and logistic. So how do you feel about that whole situation today and how the BBC handled it? Well not to not to split hairs, but it was the sports Personality of the Year Awards and I think it's always really important to understand what what the objection was at the time not just on my part on the part of many many tens if not hundreds of thousands of people who are signing petitions and it was in the national press it was on the front pages big deal partly because the newspapers love bashing the BBC. That's a Side Story. The point was it wasn't an award saying this guy is a great Sports person because you know a sports person can be a bigot you don't you know, bigotry doesn't make you a slower Runner. So that's fine. It was about saying he was a sports Personality of the year and those Awards with the BBC have always been about a certain degree of heroism and saying this person is someone that kids and we should all look up to it's putting someone in pedestal, you know. Not just for how good they are punching people or running away from things. So that was my that was my issue with it as a guy who was one of the first if not the first openly gay Newsreaders on TV in a part of the United Kingdom. That is so endemically homophobic. I just I thought how can I how can I not say something about this not to everyone but just to the people I know and to the people who Me reading the news. So even though you weren't involved in the situation directly. Obviously, did you feel in some way complicit because you are part of the organization. You also represent its values will the awards were being hosted in Belfast that year. So it was particularly relevant, you know to that part of the world and there's this, you know, huge focus on Northern Ireland and it was really bad timing for the BBC and the BBC clearly was very uncomfortable about the Situation in which they had found themselves. They had not nominated him directly. It was done by a kind of third party group of Judges, but the BBC had influence over the over the judging. I think if one of the people nominated had said something that was wildly anti-semitic or really horribly racist for instance or it done a Glenn bottle and said that disabled people were being punished. I do think they would have they would have taken back the nomination but this double standard with it's slightly, okay? You homophobic not just in the BBC. I think that Indian so tell Lacey. Yeah, it's kind of slightly. Okay, because gays are all a bit Mone aren't they seems to be the attitude that I've come across in my career in the media so many many times. Oh, it's just the gays moaning again. I didn't feel that way. When I've been working for four years in a part of the United Kingdom where homophobia was a really big issue where it was Rife in the political sphere where I was seeing it at work and when I was seeing it when I was out reporting on stories when I was seeing people spraying KKK and burning down gay people's houses saying get out of our community you're dirty and then to have someone who shares those views being put on a pedestal for me. I found very uncomfortable. Yes like you on a personal level, but I'd seen a lot of homophobia and I guess I had bitten my tongue a few times as a producer and a journalist, but it felt bigger than that because I haven't really talked about this before but I would very regularly. If not on a daily basis, then certainly three or four times a week at messages from people in rural parts and also cities and towns in Northern Ireland say from old from elderly people. Not just young people. It means something to me that when I switch on the news, you're openly gay and I see on Facebook that you're out with your boyfriend in the gay club because I've never been able to be openly gay because I'm scared because I will lose my family my friends my farm. No, my business whatever it might be that's still there. A lot of people seem to think because so much progress has made that doesn't exist anymore. But there's still plenty of examples of people who are living like that. But so did you feel as working as part of a major broadcaster? Did you find that restrictive because that's something I always find strange looking at a lot of individuals and TV presenters. It's as if they're not allowed to have any sort of a any sort of a opinion on anything they have to be very objective. They have to be stay right in the middle. Well, they do on certain things. They don't on other things. I think quite rightly a black presenter would be able to speak publicly about there not being enough black presenters the BBC and they think should be supported in doing that. And I think they would be I think we saw with women talking about gender inequality when it came to pay the BBC female. Says very high-profile female presenters were getting an awful lot of bad press for the BBC by talking to journalists about their pay which is fundamentally breaking their contracts and they were pretty much allowed to do that. I struggle to see the difference. And of course, it's relevant at the moment. I do think it's very important to be objective as a journalist and arguably the Tyson Fury situation was a big news story at the time. So me giving my opinion on it, you know broke that Code of objectivity but I think as a journalist. Sometimes you come up against these situations where you're faced with something that is so visceral and integral to your own DNA as a human being that actually your responsibility as a journalist to be true to your principles and tell the truth is more important than your responsibility to pretend. You're a robot with no opinions because who fucking believes that anyway who He watches the news and thinks you Edwards doesn't have opinions. And in fact in the days of you know, now Piers Morgan and Jeremy Vine and presenters. Who are I see Jeremy Vine isn't as opinionated as Piers Morgan book presented her a little bit more open about what they think about things that affect them. I just I feel like that's a rule for some issues like women's pay and Racial equality doesn't seem to be a rule for BTW issues, but did you experience a lot of homophobia yourself of whilst? You were working in the media? I I was when I was editor of wife and FM which was then gcapp now global. I used to read bulletins and the station manager would think it was funny doing a kind of John Inman very campy dance. I remember her past the window, you know, the I'm free really leave me here. How long ago was that - oh that was Maybe eight or nine years ago 10 years ago, but not long ago at all long ago and it wasn't you know what he was like a it was a sporty bloke type and he respected me as a journalist and he liked me and I don't think it held but he'll be back in my career. But he was just one of those guys who had that Men Behaving Badly way about him. So actually that was homophobia, but it didn't it actually didn't bother. Me because I think there are so many more important things to be offended by then. Just you know people who are just a bit dense, but then the darker type of homophobia is when I was working at a network news room for a much bigger company and there were people who are working there who were hiding the fact they were gay from the editor because it was an unspoken understanding that he was homophobic person and I I suppose as a But was come didn't hide it at all. I would say morning meetings while my boyfriend thinks this and I went here with my you know, and I've and issues will come up about LGBT stuff and I'll give my opinion and I was I was not promoted and I was not respected and I was not trusted and I was not supported and he was a pretty miserable year there and I ended up having to leave. That's just shocking that exists in the media though. It's and I always think of the media as being really relaxed and really liberal even within new circles. Yeah, is it shocking? I don't know. Yeah, I guess so I guess so there's I mean, there's been a very kind of machismo Macho thing in the media for a long time and I think particularly men of a certain age but also women of a certain age in the media are how would I put it very impatient increasingly privately so Because they have to be but I think the word is impatient with LGBT stories. Why is that because they think they're boring and they're not interested and they think it's just gay guys bitching and moaning. I've had editors say it's you know, it's one of those things because who'd be stupid enough really to come out and say something like that, but it's a kind of in a meeting when you say well what about this story about like before the gay marriage thing really was a political possibility of Course there was a great push for it and they were people talking about it and talking against it and it was an interesting debate. But you know, these these stories would come up and they would be in the papers and then you'd sit there in the morning meeting whatever Network it might be whatever company it might be and you would you would say let's do this and there'll be a slight kind of I roll and that's just it's just that old thing. So taking you right back now to the very beginning, so can you tell me a bit about your background and where you grew up? Yes, I think I had the unfortunate start of having just one of them treating most Bland upbringings that you can possibly imagine. I think I wish I had I wish I had some true adversity. That's a good complaint to have. Yes it is and I'm very lucky I had out. I had a roof over my head. I was fed. I wasn't bought lovely clothes, but I wasn't bought secondhand. Plates I we didn't go on Posh holidays, but we went on Caravan holidays that were perfectly nice. My parents were teachers. I lived in a semi-detached house in a very suburban area just outside Milton Keynes and I went to comprehensive primary school and secondary school and it was all it was all very safe. I love you know, I love my parents they split when I was 16. That was the first sense of any kind of drama I suppose in my life, but other than that, it was all very stable, but I slightly envy people who have Either very privileged upbringing I would have loved to have been a rich kid goes private school or very terrible upbringings that kind of forged them into a diamond ready to be polished. I was like, I was like kind of a half filled water balloon going home. Here. I am it doesn't always work. That way does a most rich kids go off the rails and they've nothing to prove. No, they don't most rich kids get filthy. Rich and marry other rich kids and talk about how hard life is and who were God I could only afford three ponies and then they'll Of talking if you if you I live in a part of London where if you go out to a bar, there are so many rich kids pretending they're not rich but loving the fact everyone knows they're rich but most relevant bitter never think that and put a lot of rich kids though. They don't they're just very they were very narrow view of life. There are no it's not very do isn't that wonderful. They don't know hardship nor will they ever how do I stayed at the BBC and not can I clarify that a little bit? See what? Yeah, go ahead yet. I think the thing I didn't get to this really important for people to understand about what happened to me at the BBC as I didn't I didn't do because I was thinking of myself as the Gandhi of gay people. I wasn't doing it because I wanted to make some big hoo-ha her about it. I've I've had people say we you know, you just wanted the attention you did it for attention. I mean, trust me. I just put something on my own personal Facebook page. I didn't go to the papers. I forgot that half my friends on my Facebook page. Were journalists so that was the stupid thing I did and then when the ball started rolling and I was suspended. I then got to a point. That's when I made a decision. Do I stand by my principles? Do I stand by what I said or do I do what I'm being encouraged to do which is take a slap and say I'm sorry and shut up and wait for people to forget and from the BBC's point of view completely understand why they did it if I was head of HR at the BBC, I do the same thing. Really? Yeah, but I'd broken my contracts and I've brought a load of exceptional circumstances. Answers, I brought a lot of shit to the BBC's door. I gave them more trouble. So yeah, I just decided to that. So I made the decision stand by my principles and I've never regretted it but going back to what we were saying before the only element of it. I do slightly regret I guess is that I was in I was on a good career trajectory at that point. It was quite a straight line, you know, you're a reporter at the BBC. I would have been gone to network. And then maybe I'll have got shifting BBC breakfast or something or I'd have been one of Guys in the scarves outside Parliament or it was quite clear because as soon as I stepped outside of that it then became, you know much less direct and predictable. So, can you remember when you first became aware of what it even meant to be gauged you have one definitive moment. I remember getting changed for PE when I was about five or six and the girls went into one bit of the class and the boys had to go into the other bit of the class. I remember Looking at the other boys and I suppose just being at the same time very interested and curious and at the same time really uncomfortable and really out of place and wanting to just hide and I had no idea why that was I wasn't precocious at all. I really I had no sexual interactions with anyone on any level until I was about 18 19 it universe. See there's a video of me at school when I was 12 years old and I was proper like Kenneth Williams camp and I watched that but I hadn't watched it for years. I watched it back and it just hit me like a ton of bricks was like wow, you were really in that really Natural State when you weren't aware of how you were behaving and no one had told you anything was wrong with it. You were really Camp. So what happened between then and now I mean I can be Kemp now, but I'm not well, what was that video? Absolutely? You're at school. Was that a school play? I was running across the field. And then I was we were collecting ants I think of a tree in Petri dishes to draw count how many there were whatever it was and it was being filmed as a Keepsake for the kids in the last year of primary school and I felt really sorry for this little boy because I almost felt like I had shut him away somewhere. I thought that's not how you behave now why it's not testosterone. Is it learned behavior? Did I teach myself as a teenager? Stop moving like that to stop talking like that to stop making those facial expressions. Where did that little boy go because he should have grown into a proud Camp gorgeous beautiful, man, and he didn't he grew into possibly a slightly fake approximation of a straight guy. It's like unconcerned unconscious conditioning as yeah. I between primary school and secondary school. I was I was bullied in primary school, but not kicked. I was ignored which I found profoundly painful and I think I'm sure is part of the reason why I get Why I get myself into debates publicly now perhaps it's because I was ignored throughout my childhood. And so when people don't listen to my opinion I get quite I kind of guessed that when I was read it doing your research. Yeah. Yeah. I like where does this outspoken this come from? Where does it come from? Well, I eat genuinely. I wasn't I remember sitting at school and during class times just asking the the boys next to me what they did at the weekend or you know, pretending I couldn't spell something asking them whether they could help or just something so that one of them were taught. And they literally would not they were blank me completely and was it homophobic bullying when you were in primary school? No, I just think I was in it. I suppose saw myself as being much more akin to the girls, but was scared of them and they weren't much more keen on me. I think I was picked on at school partly because I was I just didn't fit in and actually probably didn't make enough effort to fit in but between primary school and secondary school I decided right? Okay, I know. Now know why the popular kids are popular and I know why I was unpopular and I'm not joking. I wrote this going to make me sound like a sociopath but I wrote down I drew a picture. I remember I drew a line down the middle of a piece of A4 paper and I wrote on one side the reasons why I was unpopular and on the other side the reasons why the kids were popular and in the six or seven weeks some holiday. I made sure that I planned and prepared to tick the right boxes and not to take the wrong one. So I made sure I got detention in the first week. I made sure I swore I made sure I didn't have a cardboard collar on my shirt. So that's quite a thorough reinvention. It's a nurse yet weird and I have to say to my eternal credit massively fucked it up quite quickly. I couldn't maintain it which is interesting about. You know, when I went into the Big Brother house people say, oh well, you know, do you behave yourself there? Are you being yourself or you being Being a kind of a stage-managed version of yourself. You can't not be yourself for a long period of time the sad thing about it was it worked it worked. I actually became one of the most popular kids in my class and then as I became more myself I sank down into The Inbetweeners ranks where I probably probably belonged I suppose it's like a mini class systems that were talking about that again. Here's yeah and so did you have when did you realize then that you were definitely gay? It's a really hard question to answer probably University. I think I was much later on then. I realized I was I realized I was I realized I wanted to have sex with guys very early on I think when I started going through puberty and you start doing things that boys do when you start going through puberty. Actually at first it wasn't it wasn't boys. So I was thinking about because I don't think I'd realized that was even an option somehow some so at some point, I think I remember I do remember watching Queer as Folk, which is such a seminal moment for so many guys 20 years ago this year. I can't believe it in Charlie Hunnam is just so gorgeous now but was just absolute. I mean human Zack from Saved by the Bell just between them. I think they were part of my Awakening for me realizing that I was gay and coming to terms of being gay was the moment. I stopped thinking it was something wrong with me and started thinking it was something fun, too. Explore and enjoy so there was quite a long period of confusion there I was there. Oh, yeah. Did you have girlfriends in secondary school? I tried I tried to have girlfriends and second school. I was so petrified of not being able to get an erection or not being able to have sex. I thought that if you if you were normal, you would look at someone you fancied and Going and I thought there was something wrong with me that it didn't happen like that and it wasn't until University when I was 18 or 19 that I spoke to a very close friend of mine because I thought there was something wrong with me that he said no no. No, you don't have to have an erection before you take the clothes off. You can get one while things are happening. I didn't know that I was an 18 year old 19 year old man walking around thinking that I was broken because Because as soon as I looked at, you know, let's say if I fancied you Johnny and obviously you're gorgeous man. And I do you know, I gent I genuinely thought Johnny that I would look at you as an attractive man, and I should instantly have an erection. Where did you get that idea from? I don't know. I think I got it from other boys talking crap. I think I got it from other boys talking crap bravado. Oh, I see, you know, I yeah showing off their erections in their trousers because they just looked at Miss and she's got big tits and I was got you kind of straight boy cry. That they talked and I believe I was stupid enough to believe it and it completely ruined all sexual confidence. I had at University it took me I took me quite a few attempts before I was able to enjoy any kind of sexual experience with someone because I was just petrified I heard I had been on a date with a girl like three or four nights before this was in university. This is it Universe. Yeah, and I've been on a date with a girl and I'd go I'm back to her flat having a basically a panic attack because I knew she wanted me to have sex with her and she invited me back for coffee and the first sign she had that she really wasn't with the right kind of guy was that I actually wanted coffee just to delay it we ended up going to her bedroom and Honestly, I could have I just almost passed out. I was so scared. I can't I can't quite put it into words how frightened I was there are times in my life. I've stood with pellets and Bricks flying past my head in riots. I've I've pulled a massive Whitey on very strong cannabis in the middle of a jungle thinking I'm going to die, but it was so scared. We ended up watching role does the widgets on VHS. So basically I was absolutely petrified and I ended up attending our football practice at four o'clock in the morning told my mom I was gay and then I went and so that's what You told your mom the next day. I walked home from that girl's flat. So ashamed and embarrassed that this this poor girl that had to lie next to me this pathetic. Prick next next to her really hard on yourself and no I well I was at the time and I look back and I think just want to slap me because why was I putting myself in that situation? I was putting myself in that situation because I thought at the time that if I could have sex with a girl then I wouldn't have to be gay but it's normal to have that period of experimentation isn't this a lot of gay guys. I know had girlfriends during University as well. Sure. Yeah. I was I'm quite envious at their I mean the first time Had sex with a woman who was two years ago. Oh, yes, I read about us. Yes, and it was great. As soon as you take the fear out of the situation, you're suddenly better at it was the same with when I was reading the news when you're I'm sure if you're a sports person. I'm really not fear is the enemy of success and it's the same with sex. And so how did it go the next day coming out to your mother? Well, yeah. I walked I walked home in tears and I thought I cannot live like this and actually credit to my 19 year old self, even though I took A while to get there. I am the kind of person when I realized something. There's no debate. There's no waiting. I just do it. There's no fucking about what's the point? Why waste time so I thought okay. That's it. You've got was your best shot ever a trying to have sex with the girl clearly never gonna happen. So you are now just you are gay and I went home and I said, I looked at myself in the mirror above above the sink of the end of my bed in this tiny little room in Halls and I just said for the first time ever out loud. I said it in my head as abuse, but for the first time ever out loud I said you're gay and it's suddenly didn't sound so bad anymore the phone rang and it was my mum now that's not a massive coincidence. Right? So don't believe in coincidences either but I don't believe in it's meant to be it's meant to happen, you know fate she would call me like all the time. So it wasn't it wasn't a big deal that she called me Benny what she did at the perfect moment and I got like half way through the Telling her that I was gay and I couldn't finish the sentence not because I didn't want to because I was crying too much. I'm quite sad that a crime very easily. That's good. Get out your feelings. Yes, I guess so, you know if you're standing in a prime mock sobbing. It's all a bit embarrassing, but I she thought I was going to tell her that I had cancer or something. So your mother had no clue. She had no clue blesser. And when I told her she was just very relieved and she drove to Preston from Milton Keynes the next Morning to give me a hug and tell me that she loved me and it was very young. You know, I get kind of emotional talking about it. Now. It was a very special moment to share with my mom and I knew from boyfriends in Preston that it wasn't that easy. So so you had a positive coming out experience your family then I realized how lucky I was and my dad was very accepting of it to everyone was everyone was accepting that I remember it. You know, my two closest friends at Uni. Two big kind of two big sporty Lads in and fill who I'm still very very close with went up to them to say I've got something to tell you and I'm a bit nervous about it. We both know you're not going to tell us you're a fucking gay. I because I was the one who was always going on dates with girls. I mean, they thought I was having a really busy sex life. They didn't know that I wasn't actually able to consummate any of these relationships. They thought I was quite busy now. I'll go you would have told you go very good blokey accent. Yes. I've been working on it for years as I said all three. Through my teenage years. I perfected it and I said yes, I am telling you I'm and how did they respond there? Just give me a hug bought me a point and thought it was hilarious and that's that's largely been my that's largely been my experience. I don't think I've and so now all of them had anyone be react badly when I told them and gay maybe some low-level homophobia as I've said here and there at work but never confirmed so I have been very lucky very lucky. So overall quite a happy coming out story. Yeah, I mean for me personally the difficult part was me being anti Andy the gay guy not other people and I think that's so often the case. It's very easy to say. Oh, you know homophobic parents are terrible or homophobic cultures are terrible, but actually very often the worst and most aggressive homophobes are queer people and you see that played out a lot in social media and reactions to some of the Articles I've written and you know this debate around what what is gay and what isn't gay and how are gay people supposed to behave and what a gay people allowed to call each other now is obviously a thing. I mean I'm using the word gay and there'll be people say I should be talking about then say well actually under your probably queer or your by or if it's very confusing and I think that confusion partly comes from this This lived experience where you've grown up from an early age trying to work out who the fuck you are. And whether you even like it it's from growing up in such a homophobic Society. It's really hard not to internalize some of that yourself. Yeah. I mean, I look back and I think how homophobic was the society that I grew up and I suppose it was did you not hear loads of gay slurs in school? Yes, I guess I did I guess I did. Yeah. I mean I was head boy it to use Dell school I went to and they called me give head boy. So they obviously knew something. I didn't know but that was not that was not a compliment. No, say yes, I suppose I grew up I suppose I did grow up surrounded by homophobia in a way, but but I didn't grow up with a family who were telling me that it was wrong to be gay. I didn't grow up in a world where gay people were openly abused. It was it was a kind of a low level thing but it does poison. It does poison where you see yourself I suppose I put it this way the very fact that I thought there was something wrong. You know that that that tells you that actually there wasn't something wrong with me but there's something wrong with the world in which all grown up and what advice would you have now for your younger self who are struggling with your sexuality or for anyone out there who is trying to come to terms with us? I think actually people overcomplicate sexuality and I think one of the dangers now is that people are really overcomplicating it adding so many words so much terminology to try and describe something. That is really who do you want to have sex with it's not actually complicated nor is it the most interesting thing about you? So I think I'd say to myself she'll get over it a little bit just Your guy you like penises, that's kind of it. I had a guy talking you as a young lad and he was saying I don't know whether I'm gay or whether I'm queer with run by whether I'm panning and all these different things. And I just said to him well if you're walking down the street, but you're on an underground tube Carriage. Are you checking out the boys and girls instead older boys? We are gaining he's up and he's like, yeah, but but but but but I said no no, you're just gay. I mean and who gives a fuck who cares? Who cares how many letters behind your name? It doesn't matter you this this self-indulgence I think is dangerous because actually other people don't really care what extraordinarily A kaleidoscopic definition you give your sexuality they don't care. So don't let yourself care too much call yourself, whatever you want. But just get on with your life if you want to have sex with someone as long as they're an adult and consenting and it's fun just do it and focus on focus on Shining a light on your talents your creativity your charity your kindness your intelligence your education. The help that you give other human beings, these are the things that are interested. It's a lot of people still struggle with identifying as gay. Isn't that part of the problem? I think what I think teenagers always want to reinvent and always want to do something different. So right now it's quite different to come out early and be openly gay and for everyone to liking for it to be cool and my goodness do I applaud that? I think that's very healthy the slight downside of that is also that they also that they're inventing new terminology that I think is unnecessary and confusing that you know, I did it. I did an interview with someone a while ago and I wrote it up and I described them as gay and then they sent quite an aggressive angry email afterwards saying I'm actually not gay. I'm queer. And I really felt like replying who gives a fuck really does it matter. Is that what matters to you in your life? Is that the most important thing that you come across when it's when we're talking about LGBT Prejudice. There's so many things that the people should be angry about. That is not one of them. And how did they differentiate between the two labels? Oh, I don't know. I didn't explain that. I didn't say why I wasn't interested frankly because it's not offensive to get something like that wrong. If someone decides arbitrarily frankly that a particular semantics is right to describe something that no human being can possibly describe because because love and relationships sexual attraction are such amorphous enigmatic things. You cannot simply give words to that. So stop trying and stop being offended when people get it a bit wrong. I think it's so it's so worthy and so self-indulgent and so lecturing at the moment that it actually stops people. It stops people talking properly and having The Bravery in the confidence Irene articles where people have attacked me and said that I'm homophobic which is just so offensive to me based on some ridiculous. Oh I've written I right, you know, You're right. There's something quite fun about poking the Bear right? And that's not sexual thing. There's aren't my thing apparently otters. I don't know. There's something quite fun about a group of people who are very worthy and Superior and just poking them a bit and winding them up. I have to there's part of my personality. I get I get a bit of joy out of that only ever do if I really mean mean what I say, I mean, I wrote something about an it's very misogynistic the way that game. Talk about women's bodies for instance and it is I find it disgusting the way a lot of gay men talk about women's genitalia and the way women smell digging. I wrote a piece about that and the abuse I got back the abuse. I got back from writing about enjoying having sex with a woman one time. You're not gay. I think there was a Hollywood actress. I can't remember her name who spoke out about that as well. Yeah. She's misogyny. Yeah. She said that she believes a lot of gay men were incredibly misogynistic and in your introductory. Big Brother VT. I remember you said you weren't proud to be a gay man. You were just a gay man people needed to get over themselves and move on with their lives. So that was three years ago, but what did you mean by that? And do you still stand by it? Yeah, why would I not stand by that? I thought you might have changed your mind. I thought you were in the spotlight at the time and you wanted to say something dramatic. Like I said earlier, I I like saying things that challenge people but I always mean what I say don't confuse that with me being a Katie Hopkins or one of those counties. You just says things for effect. I don't why it's a why what did you mean by it? Exactly? Did I wasn't proud to be gay? Yeah, I don't I don't understand why I don't understand why people find that controversial statement being gay is not an achievement. You can be proud that you can be proud that you've come out as gay. You can be proud that you have made sacrifices to stand up for being gay be proud of those things their achievements. I mean if I said to you, I'm really proud that I'm six foot one and a half you'd think I was a dickhead if I says you are re sexuality. Maybe it's not a trick as soon as she starts saying I'm proud to be gay you are buying into the idea. That being gay is some kind of choice because otherwise what are you proud of like I'm not proud that my hair is going gray. It just is I'm not proud that I'm gay because I am it's not a point of Pride being gay. He just are and you should be comfortable with it and you should never ever feel as though you have to hide it. You should never have to apologize for it. It you should talk about it and you should fight for other people to be able to talk about it and to be comfortable with it but to have pride if that's if that if that's your achievement in life than you need to try harder. So you only associate Pride with the accomplishment of certain skills. I think if you should be I think you should be proud of things that you have you built and you've made and u-shaped and you've influenced, you know, when I write things in people say well. And you know, they try and lecture me on on my opinions on LGBT issues. I think well when it comes to LGBT stuff, I have a lot to be proud of I've helped young people to come out and I supported them and still do where I can I've helped gay people and work places to find agency and to be more assertive. I have sacrificed my entire career to stand up for what I believe in with. EBT people and that's what I'm proud of and someone comes to me on Twitter or somewhere says that they're they're angry at me because I said they're not allowed to be proud of the fact. They are something they would have been anyway, okay, so you think just being born gay isn't enough being born gay is great and be open about being gate. That's something to be proud of right be proud of the fact that you have realized that you're gay or queer or you know, and you have done something brave and you have been yourself even when Society doesn't necessarily want you to be that be proud of that just isn't that what being gay in compasses there's a difference. I think there's a difference look at you get in a way. It's semantics but I think it seems I think it's I think it's relevant and this is what I was trying to get across is that there's a difference between saying I am proud openly gay man and saying I'm proud of the fact I'm getting to know me. Okay would I expect My two friends from University earlier to say they're really proud that they're straight. No that's weird being gay is a point of difference and that can be quite exciting and it can make you feel quite exotic and I but I think I think that way lies Madness and really shallow vanity to to take pride in just simply the fact you're gay. It's just you it's who you are and the sooner you realize that being gay is just who you are and stop trying to use it as a medal. Probably you'll start finding other things that are much more interesting to other people and much more worthy of your pride. Andy it has been great chatting to you plenty of food for thought and I'm looking forward to seeing more of you on TV in the for many more years to come and to the novel as well. So Andy, thank you. Thank you very much. It's been a real pleasure.
People resign from their jobs all the time. But when Andy West left his job as a BBC journalist in 2015 it made headline news. Because his was no ordinary resignation; it was in response to Tyson Fury’s nomination for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards (Tyson is widely known to be homophobic and misogynistic). Andy subsequently became a contestant on Big Brother the following year and finished fourth overall. He now pops up regularly on our TV screens on show such as This Morning, Jeremy Vine’s show on Channel 5 and of course locking horns with Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain. He is also a highly acclaimed journalist and has written for the Independent, the Gay Times, Grazia and is currently working on his debut novel. When I met up with Andy in London we were faced with a number of challenges (his lengthy washing machine delivery and my technical issues to be precise) but eventually we got down to doing the interview and we chatted about;   why Andy felt he had no option but to resign from the BBC,   the sacrifices he has had to make for his principles,  the homophobia he experienced whilst working in the media,   his sheltered upbringing,   Andy’s desperate bids to fit in at school,   the confusion he felt over his sexuality,   the experience that made him realise he was gay and that he had to come out,   and why he says he still isn’t proud to be a gay man. Links Twitter @andywesttv Instagram @realandywest 