{"id":644782,"date":"2026-06-18T05:52:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T05:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/644782\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T05:52:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T05:52:13","slug":"bbc-made-second-ashley-cain-tv-series-despite-alleged-misconduct-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/644782\/","title":{"rendered":"BBC made second Ashley Cain TV series despite alleged misconduct | BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"

The BBC<\/a> made a second documentary series fronted by the presenter Ashley Cain just months after it was informed about an incident of alleged misconduct on a separate production in Las Vegas, which caused filming to be suspended and another presenter flown out at short notice to replace him.<\/p>\n

The BBC\u2019s decision to hire Cain, and promote him as a rare talent who could appeal to young men, is under scrutiny after the Guardian revealed his history of highly offensive and misogynistic social media posts<\/a>, including jokes about hitting women and degrading sexual practices.<\/p>\n

A former professional footballer and MTV reality TV star, Cain had also been publicly accused by a woman of uploading footage of them having sex to Snapchat without her consent \u2013 which he denied \u2013 before the BBC hired him to present season one of Ashley Cain: Into the Danger Zone, which was first broadcast on BBC Three on 1 April 2025.<\/p>\n

Months later, Cain flew to the US to present another BBC production, Sin City: The Real Las Vegas. Filming took place in Las Vegas in June 2025.<\/p>\n

On 9 June last year, Cain posted on Instagram to say he was scheduled to \u201chead to Las Vegas this week to film another documentary series\u201d, and posted a video of himself leaving for the airport on 10 June. \u201cAnother documentary series pending \u2026 see you on the other side,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Cain in a scene from Into the Danger Zone, which was commissioned for a second series. Photograph: BBC<\/p>\n

Multiple sources familiar with the production allege it had to be temporarily suspended after Cain appeared to be drunk during filming on 12 June. Sources said a decision was made to halt filming, before Cain was scheduled to meet vulnerable contributors, including representatives from a sex trafficking charity and a sex worker.<\/p>\n

The following day, a BBC commissioner is understood to have been made aware of the concerns raised by the crew on the production. The broadcaster then requested it to be suspended. Cain\u2019s agent was also notified. Statements were subsequently collected from crew members. It is understood those statements were shared with the BBC.<\/p>\n

Cain returned to the UK \u2013 in effect being pulled from the production \u2013 and another presenter, Tir Dhondy, flew out on 14 June to replace him.<\/p>\n

By then two interviews had already been filmed with Cain. One, with a gambling addiction survivor, Rob Minnick, was included in the final cut of the programme but edited to remove footage of Cain asking the questions.<\/p>\n

Cain did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A BBC spokesperson said: \u201cWe are very clear we expect the highest standards of behaviour from everyone who works with or for the BBC. When allegations are brought to our attention we take them seriously. We will consider this information carefully and do not intend to comment further at this stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

A source at the BBC said the corporation had been unaware of Cain\u2019s social media posts and had now asked the production companies that hired him to review what checks were undertaken at the time.<\/p>\n

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The allegations about Cain\u2019s conduct on Sin City: The Real Las Vegas were made two months after the BBC chair, Samir Shah, promised to draw a \u201cline in the sand\u201d<\/a> concerning unacceptable behaviour from on-screen talent, after an external review of BBC culture and practices.<\/p>\n

In the speech, delivered at Broadcasting House on 28 April 2025, Shah responded to a wave of scandals involving prominent BBC presenters, such as the newsreader Huw Edwards and and the MasterChef host Gregg Wallace.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrankly, I know it\u2019s not easy to deal with such behaviour [when it] surfaces in the middle of a recording,\u201d said Shah, telling staff he had \u201can absolute determination to take decisive action and rid the BBC of these behaviours for good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cain also appeared on the BBC\u2019s Celebrity MasterChef. Photograph: BBC<\/p>\n

Despite the incident in Las Vegas in June 2025, the BBC chose to broadcast a second season 2 of Into the Danger Zone. It is unclear when exactly the second series was commissioned, but production appears to have commenced around November 2025 \u2013 six months after the Las Vegas incident.<\/p>\n

Last week Cain posted on his Instagram suggesting the second series of his show would be broadcast by the BBC in July. The post has since been deleted. A BBC source said no release date has been announced for the series, which was filmed on location in early 2026.<\/p>\n

Details of the Las Vegas incident will add to the growing questions over the BBC\u2019s decision to promote Cain, who executives previously said had an \u201cexceptional\u201d ability to connect with young men and was \u201cwhat BBC Three is about\u201d. Cain also appeared on the BBC last year as a contestant on Celebrity MasterChef.<\/p>\n

Allegations from 2015 that Cain posted footage of a woman he had sex with to Snapchat \u2013 which he denied \u2013 would have been easily discoverable to BBC vetting staff looking into his background. So too would historical tweets in which he used extremely offensive language toward women, whom he called \u201cslags\u201d, \u201csluts\u201d, \u201cpsychos\u201d and \u201cbitches\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, following the Guardian\u2019s reporting, two Liberal Democrat MPs, Anna Sabine and Marie Goldman, wrote to the BBC director general, Matt Brittin, urging him to launch an immediate investigation into how Cain was hired by the BBC, and to urgently overhaul vetting processes. \u201cThis situation represents a catastrophic failure of the BBC\u2019s vetting procedures,\u201d they wrote, asking: \u201cHow did Mr Cain slip through the net?\u201d<\/p>\n

The production company Middlechild, which made Sin City: The Real Las Vegas, declined to comment. True North, which produced Ashley Cain: Into the Danger Zone, and Shine TV, the company that makes Celebrity MasterChef, did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The BBC made a second documentary series fronted by the presenter Ashley Cain just months after it was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-644782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644782","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=644782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}