LBC radio has announced on Twitter that controversial presenter Katie Hopkins is to leave the station “effective immediately”.
In a short statement at 10am, the station said: “LBC and Katie Hopkins have agreed that Katie will leave LBC effective immediately.”
Hopkins, who has a regular column on Mail Online, has sparked outrage over her comments following Monday’s Manchester bombing atrocity in which 22 people were killed and dozens injured, including children.
In one tweet, the day after the attack, she said: “22 dead – number rising. Schofield. Don’t you even dare. Do not be part of the problem. Be part of the solution. We need a final solution. #Manchester.”
She later deleted the reference to the “final solution”, which echoed the Nazi term for the holocaust, changing it to “true solution” after public outcry.
“Schofield” is thought to be a reference to ITV’s This Morning presenter Philip Schofield who walked across Westminster Bridge in a move of defiance following the terror attack outside Parliament in March.
In response to one Twitter user calling on LBC to “sack” Hopkins over the tweet, she said: “Get over yourself. Tweet acknowledged as a mis-type. Amended. Corrected live on TV. Do not load me with your bile.”
A later tweet by Hopkins was reported to the Metropolitan Police who confirmed they had received a “complaint” and that it would be “reviewed and assessed by specialist officers”.
It read: “Western men. These are your wives. Your daughters. Your sons. Stand up. Rise up. Demand action. Do not carry on as normal. Cowed.”
Hopkins, who rose to fame as a contestant on BBC show The Apprentice, has 736,000 followers on Twitter, a platform on which she regularly posts comments.
She recently lost a libel case against food writer Jack Munroe, after confusing her for someone else on Twitter, and was ordered to pay £24,000 damages.
LBC is owned by Global, the UK’s largest commercial radio company, whose portfolio includes Capital FM, Heart, Classic FM and Radio X.
Other presenters on the station include former UKIP leader Nigel Farage and journalists Nick Ferrari, James O’Brien and Stig Abell.
Guardian columnist Owen Jones receive more than 5,000 retweets for a Twitter message which said: “Enough is LBC depends on guests to function. Until they sack Katie Hopkins we should all boycott all interview requests. Enough is enough.”
Some 45,000 people have signed a Change.org petition calling for Hopkins to be sacked over another controversial Twitter message which she sent earlier this year, and then deleted.
