{"id":564096,"date":"2026-05-03T14:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T14:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/564096\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T14:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T14:16:11","slug":"iconic-cbbc-presenter-claims-he-was-suddenly-sacked-from-channel-with-star-left-gobsmacked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/564096\/","title":{"rendered":"Iconic CBBC presenter claims he was suddenly sacked from channel with star left \u2018gobsmacked\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-ylk=\"elm:icon;slk:The Independent;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"The Independent\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"271\" height=\"40\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"pr-2.5 max-w-[150px] max-h-[40px] min-[601px]:max-w-[115px]\" style=\"color:transparent;max-width:auto;max-height:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ae90c5b0-7c98-11ed-befe-1be805a50c91.png\"\/><\/a>Sun, 3 May 2026 at 10:14 am UTC<img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/9c43a2352f19ca425a4044f2f258bf45.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Iconic CBBC presenter claims he was suddenly sacked from channel with star left \u2018gobsmacked\u2019<\/p>\n<p>An iconic children\u2019s television presenter has claimed he was secretly fired from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/bbc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:BBC;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link rapid-noclick-resp\">BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Underwood, 50, worked at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/topic\/cbbc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:CBBC;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link rapid-noclick-resp\">CBBC<\/a> from 1999 to 2002, before he moved to ITV and worked as a reporter for GMTV.<\/p>\n<p>The 50-year-old, who is now a primary school teacher, has revealed that the decision to leave the broadcaster was not his own.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;ve avoided talking about this for years,\u201d he began: \u201cI didn&#8217;t wanna go to ITV, I loved working at CBBC. It&#8217;s where I started out, I had so many friends there, it was fun going into work every single day. Why would I want to leave?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He explained that a new boss at the company sat him down and told him it was \u201ctime to move on\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was gobsmacked. You know when you get really awful or shocking news and you just go blank and space out, that\u2019s what I did cos I was not expecting it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Independent has contacted the BBC for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sun, 3 May 2026 at 10:14 am UTC Iconic CBBC presenter claims he was suddenly sacked from channel&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[193318,96,46749,347,193317,391,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-564096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-cbbc","tag-entertainment","tag-gmtv","tag-itv","tag-michael-underwood","tag-tv","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}