Jim Davidson quits Hells Kitchen after gay row
Controversial Comedian Jim Davidson has walked out of ITV1’s Hell’s Kitchen after a row with fellow contestant, the gay television presenter Brian Dowling.
“Why do shirt-lifters pull that same face?” Davidson asked Dowling and another contestant about some customers in the restaurant.
“Please don’t say shirt-lifters,” Brian replied. “It’s really rude.”
“I don’t care,” Davidson replied. “.Some gay men have the same look.”
“What look?” Dowling asked: “Do I have that look?”
“No, only when you put it on,” Davidson replied. “It’s a sort of preen.”
Later on Davidson asked Dowling: “Why do you have to play the homophobic card?”
“How can you say that to me?” Dowling asked while sobbing “I am sitting right beside you. I am an equal to you Jim, in everything we have ever done.”
“Sure – that’s what GAY stands for,” Davidson replied “‘Good As You’. I know that.”
“Jim don’t say that,” Dowling replied. “Jim, I am Brian – not ‘Good As You’. I am an equal to you. You are being really, really horrible to me now .Why can’t I be Brian and you be Jim?
“I won’t walk away. I won’t be as Good As You. I will be BAY – Better Than You.” Dowling shouted, not realised that the acronym would be BTY.
In his statement, Davidson said that the pressurised atmosphere of the programme “did make me play up to the worst of my perceived image”.
