Jamie East has admitted that fellow presenter Mark Dolan's "hugely irresponsible" face mask stunt was the catalyst for his talkRADIO exit.
The 46-year-old quit the station earlier this week after an incident in which Dolan cut up a face mask live on air while describing masks as "uncomfortable, scientifically empty" and "useless".
Speaking to Radio Today's podcast, East revealed that he had already been considering his future with the network for some time before handing in his notice this week.
"I probably make their teeth itch with how lefty, liberal, snowflakey I am, and on the flipside I didn't really want to be on a station where we were condoning people cutting up masks on air, which just seemed hugely irresponsible," he explained.
"So that was the straw that broke the camel's back and I just had to get my affairs in order before I could make the jump.
"I can understand the contrary arguing and the desire for creating a bit of outrage, but speaking as someone who had COVID quite early on and having relatives that have died from it, I find it pretty vulgar and horrible to see someone like Mark, who I know and respect as a broadcaster, [do that].
"It was an extremely misjudged, heat-of-the-moment kind of thing where somebody was trying to create a bit of a name for themselves and was after a few more shifts. It was just massively misjudged.
"I just didn't feel I could justify being sympathetic to sufferers of COVID and then having that as a stablemate, it just didn't feel right."
East will now focus his efforts on his popular daily news podcast series The Smart 7.
Neil Wilkes
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