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Defiant Dan Walker hosted Classic FM Live at the Royal Albert Hall on day one of his ex-Channel 5 co-host Claudia-Liza Vanderpuije’s employment tribunal.
Claudia, 47, has accused Dan, 49, and ITN of bullying, sexism and misogyny at a hearing – which they strongly deny. Dan did attend the first day of the tribunal.
Taking to Instagram on Monday ahead of the show, Dan seemingly referenced the tribunal with a dig about having to ‘desert his co-host’ Myleene Klass in a video.
Dressed in a white tux, Dan, who has presented the Classic FM Breakfast Show since 2024, said: ‘Myleene has been put in a really tricky position for presenting. She’s about to go on stage in front of thousands of people, live at the Royal Albert Hall and her co-presenter has completely deserted her.’
To which she shouted over his shoulder: ‘Are you coming or what?’
Fans seemingly took the video as a dig to the employment tribunal as they commented: ‘Oh you, I knew it as soon as you said it’ and ‘Praying for you.’
Dan’s followers rallied around him earlier in the day as they wrote: ‘Thinking of you today’.
‘Dan love you so much on classical fm as well as on channel 5. Hope whatever happens you succeed in 100% of your day. We need you on TV as well as on the radio you are absolute Star’.
On Monday, Claudia-Liza entered London’s Tribunal Centre for the first day of a five-week employment hearing.
Her claims come after she departed Channel 5 in 2024 after over five years presenting their news programme – the last 12 months with former BBC star Dan, who joined in a huge coup for the channel in 2023.
Last week, the presenter’s lawyer Jonathan Coad, who represented disgraced ITV presenter Phillip Schofield, issued a statement on her behalf.
It read: ‘Claudia-Liza claims that she was the victim of a sham redundancy because as a whistleblower she made protected disclosures alleging that a toxic culture of racism, sexism, misogyny and bullying existed in the Channel 5 Newsroom, and that its editorial content reflected its racist culture.
‘In her claims she alleges that ITN and Channel 5 have tried to cover up the racist culture at Channel 5 News which they have tolerated despite this breaching their statutory obligations.
‘Claudia-Liza is constrained for legal reasons from saying anything further about her claims until the trial.’
Married father-of-three Dan profusely denies the allegations and has gathered more than 50 character witness statements from footballers, Olympians, BBC journalists and presenters, and other colleagues.
A source told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Dan absolutely denies any sexism, misogyny, racism or bullying. It has been hanging over him for some years now.
‘Nobody wants this but he will be there to tell the judge the truth.
‘There will be tons of witness statements which will talk to Dan’s character. He has been absolutely stunned with the amount of people willing to support him.
‘He has been stunned and actually very upset to be accused of such things.’
In April 2024, Dan – a devout Christian – was ‘completely exonerated’ following a workplace probe into ‘serious misconduct’.
Sources familiar with the inquiry said there was a lack of evidence to support the claims and former Strictly star Dan had co-operated fully.
A report last week claimed Claudia-Liza circulated email exchanges when she was banned from the newsroom after lodging her complaint in 2024, but ultimately lost support from colleagues who have largely remained loyal to Dan.
The Times reported that ‘at one point the dispute became so heated that Vanderpuije was banned from the newsroom by ITN’s chief executive, Rachel Corp’.
It added: ‘Vanderpuije responded by circulating their exchange of emails to scores of her colleagues.’
In February 2024 the newsreader was offered paid leave by ITN while they investigated her complaints and her redundancy consultation continued, The Times report said.
‘When she returned to her desk she was told to go home, “as a duty of care to you and others involved,”‘ an insider claimed, adding that ‘any sympathy she may have garnered internally was lost when she named Dan Walker specifically in the tribunal’.
