'RAFT OF ABUSE'
I was stabbed in the back by Doctor Who bosses who gave in to cowardly cancel culture, rages axed star
JAMES Dreyfus has claimed he was “stabbed in the back” by Doctor Who bosses who “erased” him from the sci-fi universe completely.
Fans of Doctor Who will, undoubtedly, remember James after he was set to play The Master in a series of audiobooks - a role that he has since been scrapped from.
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Over the weekend, the 53-year-old actor spoke to Andrew Doyle on his GB News show Free Speech Nation.
According to James, speaking publicly in support of author JK Rowling after she was accused of transphobia and asking gay rights charity Stonewall for a public debate, resulted in audio company Big Finish cutting ties with him “without one phone call”.
The conversation erupted after Andrew quizzed the actor on the idea that “cancel culture” isn’t seen as real in the eyes of some.
Kicking off the discussion, he asked James: “There is a lot of people who talk about how cancel culture is not real, there aren’t people who are losing work because of their opinions, but I know for a fact you’ve experienced a form of this, haven’t you?
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“And this was to do with a Doctor Who. Can you tell us, because I don’t think many people will be aware of this, can you tell us what happened there?”
James then claimed: “Well, I was working for an audio company playing rather a significant part in it and I signed a letter in support of JK Rowling and the horrendous abuse that she had been subjected to, and still is.
“And I also signed a letter asking Stonewall for a respectful debate on these matters.”
Continuing, James said he received a “raft of abuse” from the fans of Doctor Who, adding: “I mean a really shocking amount. At some point, you know, I thought I’m going to respond in kind and I told several of them where to go.
“I then sent a tweet out to this company saying, ‘forgive my response to these people, but I’m not going to sit here and be accused of something I’m not’.
“And then they put out a statement saying, ‘we do not support transphobia in any way shape or form’, thus sort of saying about me, ‘we think he’s transphobic’.”
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The GB News host then chipped back in to argue: “Based on nothing.”
James then went on to claim it was because of the letter he had signed to Stonewall and that the company had “just erased me” from the role - something that he found “absolutely staggering”.
He concluded to Andrew: “What astonished me was not one phone call, not one letter, not one e-mail and I just thought the cowardice to do this. I just felt stabbed in the back.”
James had previously landed a part in the Doctor Who franchise after appearing in spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures back in 2011.
This isn’t the first time that the actor has claimed to have been “cancelled” from his role as The Master, as he brought up the incident on Twitter earlier this year.
Replying to a tweet suggesting that cancel culture “is not a thing”, James responded: “That’s odd. I was cancelled and erased from a job, publicly, for asking Stonewall for a ‘respectful debate’.
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“For context, I played The Master, too. Erased and never rehired. No explanation,” he followed up in a second tweet.
When approached for comment, Big Finish simply confirmed to Sun Online: “James Dreyfus features in Big Finish’s upcoming Doctor Who audio drama, The Fourth Doctor Adventures – Series 11: Solo, which will be released early next year.”
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