On screen, being a children’s TV presenter looks like the ultimate gig – nonstop smiles, silly sketches and a studio bursting with playful props.
To millions of kids, these stars seem to live in a world where every day is playtime and the fun never stops.
But away from the cheery waves and scripted laughter, there’s a far more complicated story.
Over the years, a number of beloved favourites have become embroiled in scandals a world away from the show’s aura of childhood innocence – from cocaine stings to unfair treatment.
For some, the magic of children’s TV hides a reality far more complicated than the stories they help tell.
Here, the Daily Mail takes a look at the presenters who have revealed the dark side to the channel.
The curse of children’s TV presenters: The Daily Mail takes a look at how beloved stars ended up plagued with scandal and turmoil behind the cameras (pictured Angellica Bell in 2006)
For some, the magic of children’s TV hides a reality far more complicated than the stories they help tell (pictured Sarah-Jane Honeywell in 2002)
Angellica Bell’s struggle to ‘look smaller’
Angellica Bell is best known for presenting on CBBC between 2000 and 2006.
Appearing on the Spent podcast earlier this month, the star revealed the ‘ridiculous purchase’ she made during her early career, because she felt ‘compelled to look smaller on TV’.
Describing her younger self as ‘a little fat chubby child’, she admitted that in an effort to slim down, she bought a machine that used electrical pulses to cause contractions in her abdominal muscles, in the hopes it would give her abs.
Reflecting on how she started her career in TV, Angellica explained she’d never imagined becoming a presenter while growing up, because she didn’t believe she was ‘anything special to look at’.
During her younger years, she had a paper round and even worked in McDonalds before landing her first TV job as a roving reporter for the Big Breakfast on Channel 4 in the late 1990s.
Her big break came when she started working for CBBC in 2000, hosting in between shows before eventually landing main presenting stints on shows including Xchange, 50/50 and That’s Genius!
But despite her success, she confessed that her insecurities didn’t disappear overnight as she detailed her desires to appear ‘smaller’ onscreen.
Speaking to host Matt Edmondson, Angellica recalled: ‘For me, I wouldn’t say necessarily, being on CBBC was something that I thought could happen to me.
Angellica Bell, who is best known for presenting on CBBC between 2000 and 2006, described her younger self as ‘a little fat chubby child’ (seen in 2022)
‘Maybe because I didn’t know how to get there. I’d grown up watching it and just thinking that looks so cool, but I never envisioned myself in the spot.
‘Growing up, I was like a little fat chubby child with national health glasses, so I wasn’t anything special to look at. So I just thought, yeah, we’ll see what happens.’
She went on to explain how she ended up splashing the cash on an abs machine, before realising it was ineffective and couldn’t replace traditional exercise and diet.
She continued: ‘It was a waste of money. And I think there was a time where I felt compelled maybe to look smaller on TV. And I just thought, “Let me try these”. It’s like the idea of Spanx, really.
‘Now I don’t wear Spanx at all because I’m just like, “Look, this is me and I want to have that cake.”
‘But if I want to be smaller, a little bit more fit, then I need to do some work and go to the gym. I just can’t be bothered.’
Richard Bacon’s haunting cocaine scandal at 22
Richard Bracon, now 49, was just 18 months into his dream job at Blue Peter when he was fired at the age of 22 after admitting he took cocaine in a London nightclub in 1997 (pictured in 1997)
Richard Bracon, now 49, was just 18 months into his dream job at Blue Peter when he was fired at the age of 22 after admitting he took cocaine in a London nightclub in 1997.
Following his work on L!VE TV, Richard scooped his dream job on Blue Peter however he was hurtled into the spotlight when a tabloid – tipped off by one of his friends – revealed that he had taken cocaine.
The scandal led to his dismissal from the children’s programme, with Lorraine Heggessey, head of children’s programmes, announcing the news.
She released a statement reading: ‘It is sad that such a talented presenter as Richard Bacon has not only let himself and his colleagues down but, most important of all, he has let down the millions of children who watch Blue Peter.’
In 2022, Richard reflected on the scandal on his show Cancelled – about cancel culture – saying: ‘A producer on Blue Peter said to me, ‘you’ll never work again,’ so it did feel like being ‘cancelled’.
‘Today, if I was 22 and took drugs at a party, I think I’d get some empathy and sympathy from young people.’
In 2022, Richard reflected on the scandal on his show Cancelled – about cancel culture – saying: ‘A producer on Blue Peter said to me, ‘you’ll never work again,’ so it did feel like being ‘cancelled’ (pictured on November 12)
On being told he wouldn’t work again, he said: ‘But I remember thinking: ‘That’s not true.’ I just thought I’d find a way through…
‘The ADHD side of me does lead to certain disorganisation and chaos in my life, and I have many flaws and things I’m bad at, but I’m quite good at getting back up again.’
Richard’s fall from grace is an early example of ‘cancel culture’ – where social media has become a platform for public shaming due to old tweets.
He later revealed that the cocaine scandal had helped him deal with other traumas in life, saying: ‘I was aware that I was processing it OK. When I’ve been through other traumas since then, I think I coped better because I went through that.’
Richard reflected on how the scandal has plagued him, saying: ‘No matter what I go on to do in my career – I could bring peace to the Middle East – still, when I die, the top line of the obituary will be ‘fired from Blue Peter’…
‘I could cure Covid and still the first line would be: ‘He was that guy who was fired from Blue Peter and the head of BBC One went on telly and said that thing about him.’ It’s irrelevant to what I do now.’
Sarah-Jayne Honeywell’s misogynistic treatment
Sarah-Jane found fame on children’s TV but she was sacked without warning after she tarnished her wholesome image with a topless snap for a 2011 PETA campaign
Former CBeebies presenter Sarah-Jane Honeywell has revealed the shocking and misogynistic treatment she faced while working on children’s TV.
The presenter worked on the channel in the Noughties and revealed she felt intimidated because ‘if women speak out, they’re the problem’.
Recalling one appalling moment she revealed she was made to share a dressing room with a male presenter, ‘with no explanation.’
She raised her concerns but they were dismissed, with Sarah-Jane revealing: ‘I told one of the male directors that I wanted to be in with the girls and it became such a big deal he would hardly speak to me, he was so angry.’
After continuing to push for a same-sex dressing room she was finally granted her request, but she revealed it came at a price with crew members ‘giving her the silent treatment.’
Sarah-Jane also faced issues with female members of staff, revealing she was branded ‘old and ugly’ by a senior who had watched her on camera, with the only feedback being ‘you need to cut your hair.’
The misogyny was rife in the industry, with a celebrity male agent also behaving inappropriately during a dinner meeting.
She recalled: ‘I thought he was going to talk to me about my career but he just wanted to play ‘dare’. He asked me to go to the toilet and remove my knickers.
The presenter revealed she felt intimidated because ‘if women speak out, they’re the problem’ (pictured in 2018)
‘I pretended I was too shy. I was actually really angry. But, and I’m ashamed to say this now, I didn’t want to annoy him and be blacklisted.’
Daily Mail contacted BBC for comment at the time.
Sarah-Jane found fame on children’s TV but she was sacked without warning after she tarnished her wholesome image with a topless snap.
The former presenter took part in the now infamous PETA shoot back in 2011 where she posed topless on a giant plate of food.
But the brazen move had a disastrous impact on her career, with bosses claiming she was no longer fit to work in children’s TV.
Speaking about the scandal, she told BBC Radio Lincolnshire: ‘I was invited to do a PETA photo as I’m vegan. It was bra and pants shot.’
Sarah Jane then detailed about how she was asked to take her bra off because they said she would get more attention.
She said: ‘I thought it would be okay but it wasn’t. The Sun went to BBC for comment and they said that I no longer work for them.’
Speaking on her CBeebies days, she said she was ‘expected to be a saint’ and that when she revealed her back tattoo her bosses were shocked.
She also shared that when she was working on the children’s channel that, ‘Dads wanted pictures with me, while mums scowled at me.’
The star revealed that she is ‘still mum-shamed’ more than 10 years on from the incident.
Yvette Fielding was ‘bullied’ by her boss and molested by Rolf Harris
SIn 2024, Yvette Fielding revealed she was molested by predatory paedophile Rolf Harris while she was a fresh-faced teenage new-start on Blue Peter (pictured in 1992)
Rolf Harris pictured in 1960, was exposed as a paedophile following the launch of Operation Yewtree and died in disgrace last year
Yvette also revealed she was left alone with Jimmy Savile (pictured), who stroked her hand and told her to look into his eyes in a ‘grotesque’ encounter
In 2024, Yvette Fielding revealed she was molested by predatory paedophile Rolf Harris while she was a fresh-faced teenage new-start on Blue Peter.
The presenter joined the show in 1987 at the tender age of 18, has revealed the Australian pervert assaulted her in a TV studio within two years of starting on the show after she found himself alone with him.
At the time Harris was one of the BBC’s biggest stars, and it would be another 25 years before he was unmasked as a sexual predator by Operation Yewtree.
In an interview Yvette has peeled back some of the darker aspects of the programme’s toxic working culture when crews were alleged to look the other way and she was allegedly bullied by show boss Biddy Baxter.
She has previously accused Biddy, who quit a year after Yvette joined of being ‘incredibly cruel’.
But among the most alarming of the claims she has made is that Rolf Harris molested her when she was left alone in a TV studio.
She said: ‘It was very confusing and shocking — just bizarre to think Rolf Harris was squeezing and patting my bottom and I am standing there, thinking, “I don’t know what to do.”
‘Other people in the industry must have known what he was like and (they) left me alone in the studio with him. That shouldn’t have happened. I must have been 18 or 19. I think a lot of them did know.’
She said: ‘From what I heard, certain things were brushed under the carpet — and that should never, ever have happened’ (pictured on This Morning in 2024)
Australian entertainer Rolf died almost a year ago in May 2023 from cancer, six years after being released from prison after being convicted of sexually assaulting four girls, one aged just seven or eight years old at the time.
He, like Jimmy Savile, was exposed as a child predator in 2013 by Operation Yewtree, the probe launched following Savile’s death two years before.
Yvette said she had a ‘grotesque’ encounter with Jimmy in which he took her hand and started stroking it as he said: ‘Look into my eyes and tell me what you’re thinking’.
She added: ‘From what I heard, certain things were brushed under the carpet — and that should never, ever have happened.’ She made the comments in an interview with The Sun.
The BBC apologised in 2016 for its role in allowing Jimmy and It’s a Knockout presenter Stuart Hall to sexually abuse children on its premises following a brutal report into the culture at the corporation at the time.
Rona Fairhead, then-chair of the now-disbanded BBC Trust, said the corporation had failed not just their victims but ‘the public, its audiences and its staff… it did not protect those who put their trust in it.’
In 2014, the corporation rejected calls or a similar probe into Rolf Harris’ time at the corporation because his convictions were not related to the BBC.
After leaving Blue Peter in 1993, Yvette presented ITV children’s show What’s Up Doc? before returning to the BBC to present The Heaven and Earth Show, The General and City Hospital.
She and husband Karl Beattie then created the show Most Haunted in 2002, which saw her investigating haunted locations around Britain. The show was a runaway hit and continues to broadcast episodes online after it left channel Really in 2019.
Danielle Nicholls was forced to wear minimiser bras
Danielle Nicholls began working on the children’s channel CITV in the Noughties when she was still a teenager but viewers took offence at her natural curves (pictured in the noughties)
The star received so many complaints about her large bust that she was forced to wear minimiser bras while presenting (pictured n 2023)
Danielle Nicholls began working on the children’s channel CITV in the Noughties when she was still a teenager but viewers took offence at her natural curves.
The star received so many complaints about her large bust that she was forced to wear minimiser bras while presenting.
She previously told Daily Star that there were ‘so many complaints’, explaining: ‘I was only 19 and only had a D-cup at the time, but I was a size eight, so it was a problem.
‘I had to wear what was called a minimiser bra – in the 2000s it wasn’t trendy to have a big bust at all.’
She went on to reveal that she’s still ‘shamed’ for her assets now.
After wearing a peephole dress on TalkTV a viewer rang in to complain, but defiant Danielle hit back by stating that she refuses to apologise for her breasts.
She said: ‘I just think it’s really wrong, I’m aware I have a big bust, but it’s natural and it’s all mine. I’ve spent so long feeling embarrassed about it, but I’m always apologising for my boobs.
‘I thought, “Why the hell are you shaming me?” I wasn’t wearing inappropriate clothes, there was a hint of cleavage. I just have a big chest! We shouldn’t be apologising for that.’
After more than three years as a presenter on CITV, Danielle left the channel in 2001 but returned to work on children’s TV in ITV’s Diggit and Sooty Heights.
Danielle’s time on CITV came shortly before Sarah-Jane Honeywell was axed from presenting children’s TV when she posed for raunchy photos.
Ben Cajee’s struggles with criticism on social media
Cbeebies presenter Ben Cajee revealed that there is a dark side to being a children’s TV presenter
Ben Cajee revealed that there is a dark side to being a children’s TV presenter.
The star has always held the BBC close to his heart and revealed that his dream came true when his fifth birthday card was read out on the show by Philipa Forrester in 1992.
But after six years as the face of the children’s show, he has opened up about the difficult side of his work.
In an interview with The Independent, Ben said that there have been times in his career when he could be found ‘listening to emo music, trying not to cry your eyes out over the dried pasta you had for dinner’.
He admitted that being on television is not as glamorous as many would assume and there are no fast cars or piles of cash.
He said: ‘I’ll save the deep, dark, philosophical stuff for the memoirs, but there’s an expectation that when you’re on national television every day of your life, you’re living like Dwayne The Rock Johnson in(fast cars, fast women and mountains of cash)’.
Instead, he explained there’s a lot of being asked whether he is friends with Mr Tumble, and dressing up in silly costumes.
Ben admitted that while his job isn’t as difficult as going down the mines and there’s no danger, there are still trials.
The star explained that ‘being a presenter is hard because it’s graft’.
He went on to say that it is occasionally amazing but sometimes brutal and it is hard work dealing with criticism on social media and being endlessly cheery in front of the cameras.
‘It’s hard because in the first two years on the channel, I did more than 400 studio days – and nobody is that happy, all of the time.’ he said.
John Leslie’s multiple accusations of rape and sexual assault
John Leslie made a name for himself on Blue Peter from April 1989 to January 1994 (pictured with Diane-Louise Jordan Anthea Turner and Bonnie the dog on Blue Peter in 1992)
John Leslie made a name for himself on Blue Peter from April 1989 to January 1994.
However, his TV career came crashing down in 2002 when TV presenter Ulrika Jonsson released her autobiography in which she described how she’d had been raped when she was a 19-year-old TV-am weather girl.
John was accidentally named, live on air, as the man in question by presenter Matthew Wright.
Ulrika refused to confirm or deny that it was him and has never revealed the identity of her attacker.
But the huge publicity that the case attracted brought further complaints of ‘improper sexual conduct’ from other women, including one who alleged he had pinned her against a wall in a bathroom at London’s Sanderson Hotel and indecently assaulted her.
Another said he had taken cocaine and pestered her to join in both group and lesbian sex sessions. And another claimed she had met him a nightclub where he had groped her and exposed himself.
Yet another said that he had cornered her in a changing hut and molested her – all denied by John.
‘I turned and pushed him off,’ she said. ‘But he just looked at me and walked out as if nothing had happened.’
John’s TV career came crashing down in 2002 when TV presenter Ulrika Jonsson released her autobiography in which she described how she’d had been raped when she was a 19-year-old TV-am weather girl (Ulrika pictured in 2025)
By his side through all of the allegations was his girlfriend Abi Titmuss, a nurse who he met in a bar in Fulham in 1999.
She supported her boyfriend in 2003 when he was charged with two counts of indecently assaulting a 23-year-old actress from the North East in 1997.
He walked free from Southwark Crown Court after prosecutors dropped the case.
After causing headlines while leaving court with John, Abi went on to feature on the front page of various lads’ magazines – including Nuts, Loaded and FHM, and the couple separated the following year.
Perhaps Leslie could at this point have resurrected his career. But when photographs emerged of him taking cocaine, and a stolen sex tape of a threesome of him and Abi was leaked on the internet, it did nothing to help his reputation.
In 2008, five years on from his last court appearance, he faced fresh rape accusations.
This time, his accuser claimed that she was attacked in 1995 when she was in her early 20s. The case never reached court.
John has always been adamant that he is the victim and the innocent target of malicious lies.
John has always been adamant that he is the victim – the innocent target of malicious lies and a swathe of dishonest women drawn to his celebrity like moths to a flame. Anthea Turner shared her relief that John Leslie was cleared
In 2017, he was accused of putting his hand down the back of a bride-to-be’s trousers during her hen night at an Edinburgh nightclub.
He was acquitted after a two-day trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court but, as a result, lost his part-time work as a radio and club DJ – and more trouble was to follow.
In 2020, he was again in court for allegedly groping a woman at a Christmas bash in London’s West End in 2008.
John told jurors he was not an ‘aggressive sexual monster’ – and claimed he spent most of a party where he is alleged to have groped a woman instead talking to late Big Brother star Jade Goody, three months before she died of cervical cancer.
Putting forward his denial to jurors, he said: ‘I never sexually assaulted anyone. It’s not in my nature.
‘I’m a people person. I like life. I enjoy every day and I wouldn’t do anything deliberately to hurt anyone.
‘I’ve never done that. I wouldn’t do that. I’ve been brought up correctly. My mum and dad raised me right. I’ve been surrounded by women from 16.
‘I’m a larger than life person. I’m quite gregarious and happy and if that’s been misinterpreted, then… I would never intentionally upset anyone. It’s not in my nature.
‘I’m tactile, yes, I hug people, but not sexually. I’ve been called a big kid sometimes. I’m not an aggressive sexual monster the tabloids made me out to be. I’m a million miles from that.’
John had been asked questions about his time after being named by Matthew Wright as the rapist of Ulrika Jonsson, which he later said was a mistake and apologised for, and when he settled with News International after the phone hacking scandal.
He said: ‘I became reclusive and suicidal. I lost everything after that. There was no public, I wouldn’t go anywhere.
‘Anytime I went out people knew who I was going. I lost my financial income, I lost the house I built, I lost my life.
‘I was going to take my life to stop this happening because I wanted to protect my parents.
‘I think they were suffering more than me. It was to stop what was going on.
‘I tried to turn myself around. I thought I’d get myself back on track and try and get my life back.
‘I started going out and started to be social again. I had great friends and a lot of love, I wouldn’t be here today without that.
‘Every time I put my head above the parapet, they’d do some headline, it would bring all the past up again. It was constant for years and years. I was paranoid.
‘When I did go out, I was just aware I would never go near women because of what had been said because people thought I was that type of character.’
A string of former colleagues came out to defend John at his trial. Fern Britton, who he co-hosted This Morning with in the 90s, said she was ‘confident’ the allegation was not true.
The presenter was found not guilty by a jury over claims he grabbed a woman’s breasts at the Christmas party.
John was last known to be working DJ slots at local Edinburgh clubs.
He previously spoke of wanting to be a ‘flagbearer’ to campaign for anonymity for people accused of sex crimes.
John told the Daily Record that names of accused should be withheld because ‘your life is destroyed before you’re charged’.
