Being booted off Blue Peter for doing cocaine 'changed the course of my life' for the better, presenter RICHARD BACON tells the Daily Mail's JAMIE EAST

On the latest episode of the Daily Mail's Tales From the Celebrity Trenches, Jamie East sits down with broadcaster Richard Bacon to go behind the scenes of one of British TV's most varied and fascinating careers.

Bacon, 50, got his big break at just 21 years old after being offered a presenting role on Blue Peter in 1997. Less than two years into life as a children's TV regular, the broadcaster was unceremoniously sacked after being caught doing cocaine.

The News of the World ran a story about Bacon headlined 'Blue Peter Goody-Goody Is a Cocaine-Snorting Sneak', timing its release with the show's fortieth birthday for maximum impact. He was sacked virtually overnight, with the BBC announcing his departure on 19 October 1998.

Reflecting on the scandal 28 years later, Bacon joked that if Blue Peter hadn't happened, he'd have ended up presenting a budget holiday show instead of finding fame on Channel 4's Big Breakfast.

'It's changed the whole course of my life', Bacon told the podcast.

'When I got thrown off that show, the Big Breakfast came calling. The host Johnny Vaughan had been to prison for dealing cocaine, so it just seemed like a natural home. It made mine look like nothing.'

Elsewhere in the episode, Bacon amusingly declared that history should remember him as Britney Spears' first husband.

Interviewing the pop star back in 2002 after her public breakup with singer Justin Timberlake, Bacon thought it would be funny to bring along a vicar licensed to perform marriage ceremonies.

'I interviewed her and at the end of it, I just said: 'Obviously you're single now, you know - I am available.'

'She played along and I went: 'Do you fancy the name Britney Bacon? Sound good?' Then I went down on one knee and proposed… she said yes.

'I got out a contract, an actual marriage contract. I passed her a pen and she signed it.

'When it was all over, I was walking down the corridor with the marriage contract - then her security guy ran after me, took it out of my hand and tore it up.

'I don't think you get out of a marriage contract by tearing it up? I mean, we'd all like to get out contracts that way, wouldn't we?

'So, in strict legal terms, I was married to Britney Spears.'

Bacon added that his practical joke got out of hand two years later, when Spears married dancer Kevin Federline in 2004.

On his own Xfm radio show around the time of their nuptials, Bacon retold his marriage story, jokingly referring to Spears as a bigamist.

'All of a sudden, there were news stories that ran with the headline: Spears a Bigamist', Bacon said.

'It was so fun seeing the NBC logo above a headline that said Britney Spears is a bigamist - she's married to British radio presenter Richard Bacon.'

Catch Bacon and East's candid chat in full by searching for Tales From The Celebrity Trenches, wherever you get your podcasts.