Levi Hague, a contestant on the new series of The Apprentice, has apologised for his ‘awful’ sexist and racist comments after backlash.
The entrepreneur, 33, threw his support behind far-right activist Tommy Robinson in social media posts from the early 2010s, which have now been unearthed.
His now removed posts on X, then Twitter, reportedly included referring to the police who arrested Robinson in 2012 as ‘pigs’ and calling women ‘s**gs’.
One post read: ‘Thank f*** that extremist dirty Muslim preacher getting took out of this country. Just a waste of money and waste of space. F*** off.’
Hague is set to be one of the latest contestants vying for £250,000 and a lucrative partnership deal with Lord Alan Sugar.
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He has now apologised after an MP questioned how the former RAF worker was allowed to take part in the show, which returns on January 29.
‘I am ashamed and embarrassed to have made these posts over a decade ago,’ Hague said. ‘I offer my sincere apologies to all who I’ve offended, as well as my fellow candidates, for the truly awful language and views that they contain.
‘I take full accountability for the publishing of those posts. They are not a reflection of the values I uphold today.’
He admitted he had not made producers aware of the account during the vetting process, and production company Naked assured Metro that they would be ‘reviewing’ this process moving forward.
A spokesperson for Naked said: ‘We pride ourselves on producing a series that promotes diversity and inclusion and has done throughout its 20 series.
‘Levi’s historical posts contain language which is unacceptable and Levi has been spoken to about this behaviour. He has apologised and insists that these posts do not reflect the man he is now.’
Regarding the social media checks they added: ‘We work with reputable third-party providers to carry out comprehensive background and social media checks on all of our candidates as part of our rigorous due diligence before casting. On this occasion, these checks failed to flag the offensive posts, therefore we will be reviewing this process moving forward.’
The BBC has also called the comments ‘abhorrent’ and ‘totally unacceptable’.
In a statement to Metro, a spokesperson said: ‘We were completely unaware that this contestant had made such abhorrent comments. We have asked the independent production company to fully review the social media checks undertaken given the process has clearly failed in this instance.
‘The views presented are totally unacceptable and we are taking this extremely seriously.’
MP Nigel Huddleston, Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, encouraged the BBC to ‘urgently investigate’ and ask ‘serious questions’.
The criticism comes weeks after former contestant Asif Munaf was accused of sharing antisemitic, racist and sexist posts, as heard by a medical tribunal.
While he was on the show in 2024, the BBC faced pressure to drop the doctor from Sheffield.
According to the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS), Munaf posted several antisemitic statements, including Holocaust denial, conspiracy theories and comments which equated Jews with Nazism.
Munaf allegedly continued to make offensive comments after receiving a BBC-organised diversity and inclusion training course. He was subsequently dropped from the spin-off show You’re Fired!
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