{"id":124931,"date":"2025-09-07T06:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T06:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/124931\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T06:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T06:31:07","slug":"eastenders-star-jamie-borthwick-leaves-tv-show-after-making-slur-about-disabled-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/124931\/","title":{"rendered":"EastEnders star Jamie Borthwick leaves TV show after making slur about disabled people"},"content":{"rendered":"
He used the word to refer to the people of Blackpool. <\/p>\n
In a statement, Borthwick admitted his use of the slur was unacceptable.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to apologise sincerely and wholeheartedly for the words I used in the video showing my reaction to making it through Blackpool week on Strictly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Borthwick competed on Strictly Come Dancing with dancer Michelle Tsiakkas. Photo \/ Michelle Tsiakkas<\/p>\n
\u201cI am deeply sorry for any offence and upset my words and actions have caused. It is no excuse, but I did not fully understand the derogatory term I used and its meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Disability charity Scope told BBC News they hope the actor \u201ctakes the opportunity to get to know the reality of disabled people\u2019s lives\u201d.<\/p>\n
Borthwick was already at the centre of another Strictly debacle before the leak.<\/p>\n
A video of him behind the scenes of the show\u2019s live tour showed him holding a sex toy sent by fellow contestant Wynne Evans. <\/p>\n
\u201cLook at what he bought me,\u201d Borthwick said in the clip, \u201cI opened it up and he surprised me with this, didn\u2019t he? It\u2019s so funny.\u201d<\/p>\n
Evans was later dropped by the BBC for behaviour on the show they deemed sexually inappropriate.<\/p>\n
Borthwick was one of the longest-running cast members on EastEnders and had won a British Soap Award for the role. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He used the word to refer to the people of Blackpool. In a statement, Borthwick admitted his use…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[1466,9490,4218,64,63,72095,87699,87704,87701,60664,134,87698,8051,2351,87702,87700,1861,49147,2349,17653,87703,4031,427],"class_list":["post-124931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-about","tag-after","tag-another","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-awardwinning","tag-borthwick","tag-caught","tag-disabled","tag-eastenders","tag-entertainment","tag-jamie","tag-leaves","tag-left","tag-longrunning","tag-making","tag-people","tag-programme","tag-show","tag-slur","tag-soap","tag-star","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}