Following his termination, he said, "'The BBC must uphold the honour of blah-blah-blah'."
"Basically, they said to me, 'You meant that tweet'. I said to them, 'You think so?'" [They said] 'Well, we found it...' and I said, 'F--- you'."
He also apologised on Twitter: "Sorry my gag pic of the little fella in the posh outfit has whipped some up. Never occurred to me because, well, mind not diseased," he wrote.