Jermaine Jenas claims BBC ‘took away my life’ after sacking over inappropriate texts

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Jermaine Jenas has claimed the BBC was able to “take my life away” after his sacking over alleged unsolicited, inappropriate text messages he sent female colleagues at the broadcaster.

Jenas was sacked in August 2024 over allegations that he sent explicit texts to two female BBC employees. At the time of the scandal Jenas said, “I am not happy about it. I’ll have to let the lawyers deal with it. There are two sides to every story,” before he eventually admitted that he had behaved “inappropriately” and “made a mistake”.

The 42-year-old had formerly been part of the presenting team on Match of the Day and The One Show.

Speaking on the Reece Mennie podcast, the former Tottenham player said, “Having worked in the media for the last ten years, and having been through what I’ve been through for the last year, been a really difficult moment for myself and my family what happened which I have always held up my hand and taken full responsibility for, that’s very important to do.

“You go through a lot of different emotions of anger and blame, but eventually you realise: ‘Take responsibility, Jermaine, and you’ll be able to move forward.’

“Because of their ability to take away my life, in terms of every deal I had, the jobs that I had at that particular time, I said that is never happening to me again, so I've recently set up my own production company.”

He added that while working for the BBC “there are so many walls in terms of what they want you to do and what you’re not allowed to do. Betting companies want to work with me because I’m in football; BBC hate that because of the issues to do with gambling in general, so they block all of that.

“So there were a lot of blocks on one side and football was bringing me some stuff, but the reality is that it all got wiped out. It all got taken away.”

Jenas split from his wife of 16 years, Ellie Penfold, in the wake of the scandal. The couple have three children together.

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