Selina Scott has said celebrating the 40th anniversary of BBC Breakfast with a “grin” would have been “dishonest” due to the treatment she received while doing the show.
The presenter and journalist, 71, launched the morning programme at the corporation as Breakfast Time alongside co-host Frank Bough in January 1983.
She would work at Britain’s first early-morning TV news programme for three years.
The show was later called BBC Breakfast News and is now BBC Breakfast.
On Tuesday, presenters of the BBC’s morning show past and present gathered to reminiscence about how the show has evolved over the years, but Scott did not attend.
Writing in the Daily Mail, Scott said: “I said no because I prefer to look forward rather than back, but also because so much of my time on the hideous red leather sofa made me feel I was a combatant in a war zone.”
Scott said Bough sought to “rubbish” her on and off air, including by making alleged sexual comments about her in front of colleagues, and “excruciatingly” trying to kiss her when photographers were around.
She wrote: “If he felt as though he wasn’t drawing enough focus, he would butt into my interviews, disrupting my guest’s train of thought, and leaving me scrambling awkwardly to try to move on to the next section in time.”
Bough’s career with the corporation ended in 1988 when he was sacked after a scandal.
He later spoke of his regret over the incident and said his behaviour had been “exceedingly stupid”.
He died in October 2020 at the age of 87.
Another example, Scott said, of someone taking “liberties” was the late entertainer Jimmy Savile.
He is now believed to be one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders, and a 2016 report into his abuse found staff at the BBC missed numerous opportunities to stop him.
At the time, the then BBC chairman Rona Fairhead said she “welcomed and endorsed” the report.
She added: “The BBC owes it to the survivors and to everyone it works with or whose trust is placed in it, to make sure these events can never be repeated.”
In the piece, Scott said she felt she had “no choice” but to kiss Savile on air, as he would not answer her questions if she did not and she felt she had to “create a happy vibe” as part of her job.
She added: “Can you imagine all this being allowed to play out on British TV today? Or that women like me were expected to acquiesce?”
Scott also said: “Had I appeared on the 40th anniversary show this week, how could I have said any of this?
“It would have been dishonest to just grin and throw out some platitudes as the show tripped down memory lane.”
She added that it is “important that young women in the media today understand the battles fought by my generation” and “vital that the BBC acknowledges its past behaviour, so that each new woman who sits on the Breakfast sofa in the years to come has a better experience than me”.
Scott later worked at the BBC’s The Clothes Show before leaving for the US to be a presenter on the news programme West 57th.
She is also known for her high-profile interviews and profiled former US president Donald Trump in an ITV documentary in the 1990s, followed the now King on a trip to Scotland’s Outer Hebrides for A Prince Among Islands and interviewed the former king of Spain, Juan Carlos.
She began her career in newspapers in Dundee, later joining Grampian Television and ITV’s News At Ten.
The BBC has been contacted for comment.