Gay Radio Host Jack E Jett Axed by CNN

Jack E. Jett's Dallas-based afternoon drive-time radio show was supposed to start airing on CNN 1190 last Monday, but the longtime radio and television personality was given the boot before his show debuted.

Why? It depends on whom you ask.

CNN 1190's programming director J.D. Freeman says he got rid of Jett because of some colorful and inappropriate comments he made while talking to an alternative weekly newspaper in Dallas.

From the paper, the quote to which Freeman took offense: "Having once co-hosted his old Rational Radio talk show -- for which the guests were Al B. Sure!, Bob Barker, Gennifer Flowers and Joe the Plumber -- let me say, Jack takes his odds-and-sods line-up very seriously. 'That's the big challenge,' Jack says. 'I don't just go in and talk on the mike while I'm jacking my cock. I research. I want to have as many eclectic guests as I do and be able to do that with less research.'"

Freeman said, "The guy shows bad judgment, and I wouldn't put him on the air. Any personality who uses that language is not someone we want on the air."

But Jett is alleging its more than that, saying he was fired because Freeman is homophobic.

"Homophobia rears its head all over the place," Jack told a Dallas Observer blog. "It was a coup for me that I was getting in there. I would say to my friends, 'Come be on my show before they kick my ass off.' I was sure it would get kicked off for being too gay. It was going to be a very gay show. We were doing it for the gay community. And there is not a doubt in my mind that is what happened here. If I would have said 'one hand on my microphone and another hand playing with myself,' he would have found something else not to like."

Freeman declined to comment on Jett's allegations, but Jett said in an e-mail to Advocate.com, "I asked him three times if he was homophobic, and while he never denied it, he refused to admit it. He simply said that he doesn't have to answer me."

Jett said he thinks his career in Dallas radio is probably over because of this, but he vows to keep fighting.

"I plan to make a stink about this," he said.