Jermaine Jenas, who hosted The One Show alongside Alex Jones, hit the headlines last year when he was dismissed with immediate effect for inappropriate behaviour. The former England footballer, 42, revisited the scandal that also cost him his gig on Match of The Day. It also ultimately led to the collapse of his marriage to his wife of 14 years, Ellie, with the pair announcing their split in March.

It emerged that complaints had been made about explicit messages he sent to colleagues, which also led to him being dropped by his talent agency. Almost one year later, Jenas has revisited the scandal and has acknowledged that he dealt with the repercussions in the “wrong way”.

Speaking candidly to comedian Katherine Ryan and pro boxer Derek Chisora on his Let Me Tell You Something podcast, Jenas began: “I broke a vow. I feel my level of punishment was up there. I had to take it and have some broad shoulders and handle it, and I feel like I did that.”

On the nature of the text messages he sent, Jenas likened them to the racy Jamie Dornan Fifty Shades franchise.

“It was Christian Grey in text messages, put it that way. It was sexting, as simple as that, but it was initiated to me, and then I responded,” he explained.

“It wasn’t just me going out of my way, and it definitely 100% wasn’t, ‘If you do this, I will help you in your work.’

“There was no power element to it going on.”

Jenas also opened up about his marriage to his wife Ellie Penfold and explained they were having problems prior to the sexting scandal.

“There’s a lot of stuff with me and Ellie where we weren’t in the best place ourselves,” he said.

“And things were just spiralling a little bit. In no way is that blame. I’m fully accepting responsibility.

“I dealt with it wrong and got heavily punished for it by losing pretty much everything that I had at that time.”

Jenas has since made a comeback working for talkSPORT and declared earlier this year that he would be a “better person”.