
A top U.K. journalist, who is best known for breaking the 2020 “Megxit” story that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were stepping away from royal duties, was fired from his job as a columnist for the MailOnline this week, one day after he was suspended from his TV hosting duties after he allowed a guest to go an a misogynist rant against a female journalist.
Dan Wootton, especially disdained by online supporters of Harry and Meghan for directing “public hatred” towards the American Duchess of Sussex, was suspended Wednesday by the right-leaning U.K. television channel GB News, following an exchange on his highly rated show with Laurence Fox, an actor-turned-conservative activist, The Guardian and the Daily Beast reported.

Wootton, who the Daily Beast said has looked to become a British version of Tucker Carlson, didn’t push back on air when Fox lobbed a series of personal, sexist insults against a progressive political correspondent who had weighed in on another news show about public concerns about male suicide.
Fox fumed that no “single self-respecting man would like to climb into bed with that woman, ever, ever,” the Daily Beast said. While Wootton laughed and smiled, Fox called the liberal female journalist, Ava Evans, a “little woman” and then asked: “Who’d wanna (expletive) that?”
As a result of the exchange, GB News announced that it was pulling its star host from its evening lineup, while MailOnline.com announced it was terminating his contract to produce a freelance column for the tabloid.
MailOnline previously suspended Wootton’s column this summer, over allegations that he engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior when he worked as a celebrity reporter for Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun. Wootton was accused of using fake identities to trick and bribe male colleagues into sending him sexually compromising images, the Daily Beast said.
During a six-minute monologue on his show, “Dan Wootton Tonight,” in July, the host denied any criminal wrongdoing but acknowledged to “errors of judgment in the past,” the Daily Beast reported. Wootton, who regularly inveighs against “woke” culture on his show, also said that “dark forces” were trying to bring him down with a “smear campaign,” The Guardian reported.

While the MailOnline immediately moved to suspend Wootton, pending an investigation into the sexual harassment allegations, GB News allowed him to remain on air. That is, until this week and the Laurence Fox segment.
The British media watchdog, Ofcom, reported that it had opened an investigation into Wootton’s exchange with Fox, The Guardian said. Ofcom said it had received more than 7,000 complaints in 24 hours, saying GB News may have breached a UK broadcasting code.
In an attempt to distance himself from Fox’s remarks, Wootton posted an online apology to Evans. “I think you’re brilliant,” he wrote, according to the Daily Beast. “I apologize for what was said during the course of my show and should have done this immediately on air. This is not what our channel is about.”
GB News, which launched in 2021, followed suit by condemning the segment, saying: “Comments made tonight on GB News by Laurence Fox were totally unacceptable.”
Unfortunately for Wootton, he was derailed in his attempt to further tamp down the controversy when Fox threw him “under the bus,” the Daily Beast said. His guest posted a screenshot of a text exchange between the two, which suggested that Wootton had laughed about their segment and that GB News had known ahead of time what he was going to say on air. “Honesty is the best policy,” Fox wrote.
Wootton’s harsh comeuppance this week no doubt comes as joyous news to Harry and Meghan’s legion of online supporters. They often mention Wootton as one of the reporters who helped drive the Sussexes out of England with negative coverage that the couple said was often racist and misogynistic.
To Americans, Wootton first became known for his reporting about the British royal family but has since gained a following for his outspoken criticism of the Sussexes.
On his GB News show, he regularly books guests, including Meghan’s estranged sister, Samantha Markle, U.S. host Megyn Kelly and biographer Tom Bower, who join him in skewering the California-based couple and their latest activities.
While at The Sun, Wootton also broke some of the stories that helped to define Meghan’s short but tumultuous tenure as a working member of the British royal family.
For example, he broke he “tiara-gate” story in late 2018, which suggested that Harry had a tense exchange with the late Queen Elizabeth II over the tiara Meghan would get to wear at her May 2018 wedding, Newsweek reported. The online headline of that story read: “The Queen warned Prince Harry over Meghan Markle’s ‘difficult’ behavior after row over bride’s tiara for royal wedding.”
Wootton’s article said Harry had complained to his grandmother about Meghan being denied her choice of tiara but was told by the monarch: “Meghan cannot have whatever she wants. She gets what tiara she’s given by me.”
Harry’s 2022 memoir “Spare” confirmed there had been tension over the tiara, but he said it had nothing to do with Meghan being demanding and it was the result of an exchange with the queen’s dresser, Angela Kelly, Newsweek reported.
In November 2018, Wootton also was one of the first reporters to reveal that Meghan wasn’t getting along with her sister-in-law Kate Middleton. Wootton’s report about “royal strife” said that the women were “locked in a bitter fall-out” because the former Hollywood actor was eager to make her mark in the royal establishment. Prince William’s wife also didn’t approve of the way that Meghan spoke to her staff, according to Wootton.Harry’s book acknowledged that there had been tensions between Meghan and Kate, going back to before their wedding. In “Spare,” Harry said that he and Meghan met with Kate and William to try and clear the air. But as the world knows, that meeting didn’t alleviate any of the growing hostility between the two royal couples.
Back in 2018, Wootton denied that he was trying to point the figure at Meghan for “being a diva.” He even wrote, “There’s something exciting about a bold American newcomer to the family being anything other than shy and retiring. If any family needs shaking up, it’s the Windsors.”
However, Wootton’s views on Meghan became far less complimentary as time went on and his reports would help set the template for stories that portrayed the American duchess as “difficult,” as Newsweek’s royal correspondent Jack Royston said.