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EDITOR’S NOTE
This article contains racially offensive language which readers will find distressing
Nigel Farage told a gay NHS worker they would “get nog dick for Christmas” in a message branded “racist, homophobic and ableist” by its recipient, Byline Times can reveal.
The politician charged around £75 for the recording in which he directed the allegedly racial slur – a reference to a black man’s body part – and another about a mental health condition, at the male mental health worker through the clip-sharing service Cameo.
The personalised message, sent on 23 December 2021, had been paid for by a man whom Farage had, five months earlier, been warned supported “the enforced deportation of Britons, incarceration and sterilisation based on skin colour” and the establishment of an “ethno-state”.
In the scripted 34-second clip, Farage said: “A message from [name], delivered by me Nigel Farage. You are a bit of an old loser. I diagnose you with ‘ID*D’, yes Intelligence Deficit [name] Disorder’.
“Now I’ve been sipping martinis on the beach with all the money from all these videos, which is absolutely marvellous. It’s really great that I am being paid… to insult you.
“That’s what [name] wanted me to do and I don’t find it difficult after all my years in the European Parliament.
“Meanwhile, you will get n*g dick for Christmas.”
The Cameo site and app allows fans to pay for personalised video messages, with more than 30,000 celebrities accessible via the platform. Farage has recorded more than 4,000 videos since March 2021, most recently just before entering the I’m a Celebrity jungle for ITV, grossing around £300,000 and paying him around £225,000 after Cameo’s commission.
It was the second time Farage had accepted money from the person to record abusive messages aimed at the same NHS worker through the platform. An earlier message, sent in July 2021, in which Farage used the phrase “paper-thin snowflake” was removed from public view after a complaint.
Byline Times has seen emails in which Cameo confirms that it investigated Farage’s content on that occasion and acknowledged that the recipient – whose name along with the sender’s this newspaper is protecting – felt “harassed”. Cameo also made a private apology.
The recipient said: “In 2021 I, was working with young people… [who] were expressing racist views and I was talking to them via [Facebook] Messenger. I was trying to counter this. I gave up because I was getting nowhere and they paid Mr Farage to do a 30-second online video insulting me… I did email him asking him to steer them away from racism and he didn’t reply.
“In December 2021, they paid for him to again insult me, this time saying how much he enjoyed insulting me and saying he hoped I got ‘n*g dick for Christmas’. They meant black man’s penis.”
The man – who has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and identifies as gay – added: “It was racist, homophobic and ableist. It was deeply offensive. Mr Farage does not know me. I was shocked to see him revelling in it. I could have been anyone. What if I had been 15 years old and struggling to come to terms with my sexuality? These words have real impact.”
He told Byline Times that he reported the matter to his local police station on Christmas Eve 2021.
“I did take it to the police who weren’t interested but did say I could complain but would have to show how much he had caused the distress and alarm, which he didn’t really, he just annoyed me,” he added.
The complainant followed up with three unanswered emails sent to an official address at nfarage.com telling the former MEP of his concerns about the people paying for the personalised message and their motives.
One email read: “Hi Nigel. You recently took £75 to do this video. I think you should have some context. I started talking to [the sender] because I was concerned [they were] at danger of becoming radicalised to the point of criminality. I stopped talking to them because of their refusal to stop using discriminatory language (including derogatory descriptions of young children based on skin colour). They repeatedly say that black people are genetically inferior and criminal. The solutions they propose include enforced deportation of Britons, incarceration and sterilisation based on skin colour towards and ethno-state.”
The recipient added: “I learned afterward that Farage queried the intended meaning of ‘n*g dick’ with the customer before he sent it off. I don’t know what he was told but he is a smart enough person to know exactly how people would receive it.”
The Daily Express Steps In
This is not Farage’s first brush with direct-message controversy.
In October 2021, the former UKIP Leader shouted out “up the ‘RA” – a reference to the Irish Republican Army – in a different birthday greeting video on Cameo.
At the time, Farage said he always rejected unsuitable messages – which are written by the person paying – but said that this one had managed to “slip through the net”. His press officer claimed that the former Brexit Party Leader, who was a Member of the European Parliament for nearly 11 years, “probably didn’t know” the inflammatory meaning behind the phrase.
However, another former leader of UKIP, Alan Sked, said he heard Farage using the racial slur ‘n*g-n*gs’ during their time co-founding the party. Although Farage has denied ever using the terms, he has been asked about them publicly since.
Sked, who quit the party in 1997 saying it had become racist, said Farage once told him: “There’s no need to worry about the n****r vote. The n*g-n*gs will never vote for us.”
Farage also addressed the issue in a 2014 interview with the LBC radio presenter James O’Brien.
Byline Times is publishing this article after Nigel Farage’s representatives took steps to publicise the allegations – suggesting they are part of a conspiracy to deny him a chance of winning the ITV reality show.
Having first instructed London law firm Carter Ruck to try and delay the story, in response to a request for comment, Farage’s team leaked its own version of events to the Daily Express newspaper.
The Express did not approach Byline Times for comment or any background information before publishing its own story – which claims, uncritically, that the Cameo message was a “set up” by “remain supporters to embarrass Nigel”.
It is not known whether Farage’s camp made the Express aware of the racist views held by the man who commissioned the Cameo video or that Farage had been emailed in clear terms about the man, his extreme beliefs, and that he saw Farage as a “leader”.
ITV is paying the former City stockbroker £1.5 million to appear in its primetime ITV series, and he is currently sitting as the fourth-favourite to be crowned ‘king of the jungle’.
Farage has calmly tackled the show’s Bushtucker trials, with viewers voting to watch him eat camel udder and crocodile teat as well as pizza topped with sheep penis, pig penis, and bull and crocodile penis – during which he even managed an unlikely ‘mmm’ for the cameras.
He also got caught in a tense exchange with campmate Nella Rose, an influencer born in Belgium to Congolese parents before arriving in the UK in 2009, on the subject of immigration.
Farage claimed Britain’s population had risen by 10 million since 2000, adding this was making it harder to get an NHS appointment or a ‘filling’ with a dentist. But as Rose said a lack of NHS funding was to blame, an exasperated Farage said: “Stop it. Stop. Nella, you’re not listening to a single word I’m saying.”
Rose then asked Farage: “Let’s get everything out in the open. Apparently you’re anti-immigrants?” Farage asked: “Who told you that?” Rose said: “The internet.”
Farage replied: “Oh, well there we are then it must be true,” while Rose asked: “It must be! okay, but then why don’t black people like you?”
Farage replied: “You’d be amazed, they do” – to which Rose reacted: “Nigel! Nigel!”
‘Real Threat and Fear’
Farage has repeatedly denied being racist and has claimed that black people, in areas such as Catford in south London, stop him for selfies.
Farage also denied being anti-immigrant. He told campmate Rose: “No, no, all I’ve said is we cannot go on with the numbers coming to Britain that are coming.” To which Rose replied: “I’m one of the numbers.”
Farage remains active on Cameo and was posting out greetings as recently as 11 November.
His account – in which he describes himself with the words ‘they call me Mr Brexit… some people say I am controversial, and I couldn’t care less’ – is “temporarily suspended” while he remains in the Australian jungle.
In one message from 3 October this year, Cameo user ‘Massimo’ thanked Farage for a quick two-hour turnaround on a message when the site says it could take up to seven days. Praising Farage for having also “embellished my script”, Massimo gave the politician a five-star rating.
Farage will return to his prime-time presenter role for GB News at a time of great uncertainty for a Conservative Party preparing for a likely period in opposition after the next general election.
Farage led UKIP from 2006 until 2009, and again from 2010 to 2016. He joined the party – which campaigned for the UK to leave the EU – in 1993 after leaving the Conservatives, and was elected to Brussels as an MEP in 1999.
As UKIP Leader, he campaigned claiming that European migrants were depriving British people of jobs. It made him popular among certain parts of the electorate, but while UKIP enjoyed European election and local council success, Farage was never able to replicate this in general elections, despite himself standing seven times for Parliament.
He stood down as UKIP Leader weeks after the 2016 EU Referendum, claiming that he had achieved his “political ambition” – and later formed the Brexit Party, now Reform UK, of which he remains honorary president.
Westminster sources have told Byline Times of the “real threat and fear” felt by centrist Conservatives should Farage win a by-election and force his way into the Conservative leadership, backed by media allies at GB News, a major investor in which is Sir Paul Marshall, the investment fund magnate.
“The more fuel Farage gets to maintain his profile, through GB News and shows like I’m a Celebrity, the more of a threat he is to the party if he gets a parliamentary seat in a by-election,” said one political source.
Labour MP Clive Lewis told Byline Times: “No one should be surprised at his use of racist language. This is, after all, the same individual that pleaded with Enoch Powell to [endorse] UKIP. The same individual that was described by one of his teachers as having ‘publicly professed racist and neo-fascist views’. What’s actually more concerning is the fact ITV are now playing their part in normalising his voice.”
Byline Times asked Farage’s office for a comment.
His spokesperson told the Daily Express: “When Nigel first joined Cameo, there was a concerted effort by remain supporters to hijack the platform to embarrass Nigel by getting him to read out obscure rude words and in-jokes between friends.”
Claiming the scripted request had “slipped through the net”, the spokesperson added: “In the video, Nigel was asked by a customer on Cameo to read a message they had written for a friend. Had Nigel known that the message he was asked to read contained an obscure offensive word, he would not have made the video.”
Cameo did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for Surrey Police could not confirm or deny the 24 December 2021 report.
The full version of the racial term was only used in the first line of this article to clarify to readers, for accuracy, what the term is.
Additional reporting by Adam Bienkov