Former Leicester City footballer Gary Lineker, 62, spoke to Men’s Health UK about why he refused to “back down” after sparking an impartiality row with the BBC over a Twitter post last month.
The pundit was suspended from Match of the Day after he condemned the language used by Suella Braverman while discussing the government’s new asylum policy.
Gary divided opinion when he compared the policy to language “used by Germany in the 30s”.
Gary has now revealed his agreement with the BBC over his Twitter usage, while insisting that he stands by what he wrote on the social media platform.
He told Men’s Health UK ‘Talking Heads’ columnist, Alastair Campbell: “When the new social media guidelines were brought in, I said fine, but we agreed I would not stop occasionally tweeting about two issues in particular: climate change and refugees.
READ MORE: Tom Daley and husband Dustin announce the birth of their second child
“I wasn’t prepared to back down on that, especially as I felt and still feel that what I tweeted was fair and true.
“I wasn’t abusive, I wasn’t saying she [Suella Braverman] was a Nazi.
“I talked about the use of words like ‘invasion’ and ‘swarms’ and ‘criminals’ and ‘rapists’, which I think we should be very careful about because it has real-life consequences.”
Alongside the BBC’s social media rules, Gary has his own personal list of restrictions he abides by while using Twitter.
The star explained: “I have three rules: I never tweet if I’ve been drinking, I never tweet if I’m angry, and I always read the tweet back before hitting send.
“If I have 1% of doubt, I don’t post it.”
It comes after Gary admitted the scandal over his tweet last month had left him baffled, due to his previous agreement with BBC director general Tim Davie.
While opening up on the scandal to Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart on the The Rest is Politics podcast, Gary said: “I’m still bewildered. I think it was so disproportionate.”
He recalled of the night after he originally posted the tweet: “I went to bed. I woke up the following morning.
“ I don’t look at my phone til I’ve had a coffee. I sit drinking my coffee, I put my phone on. I get you know five WhatsApp messages – sometimes if the boys are chatting amongst themselves in our group chat it might go up to 20, 30 maybe.
“So I wake up in the morning, looked at my phone. It’s got 237 WhatsApp messages. I’ve gone ‘Oh my God, what’s happened?’.
“I’ve really had really worried thoughts for a few seconds because I couldn’t think what it could possibly be. And I thought either it’s some kind of scandal or has something happened to one of my kids.”
‘Gary Lineker was speaking to Men’s Health UK ‘Talking Heads’ columnist, Alastair Campbell, in an interview available on the magazine’s website now