Vanessa Feltz attacks 'anti-Semitic' Sunday Times column: 'How was this printed in the first place?'

The presenter has said the article made her 'extremely upset'

‘I would have thought after all these years I'd be immune or used to it, but that's not at all how I felt,’ Feltz said (Getty )

BBC presenter Vanessa Feltz has described the Sunday Times column suggesting she and Claudia Winkleman earned more because they were Jewish as “obviously racist”. Speaking on the breakfast show she presents for BBC Radio London, Feltz said she felt “extremely upset” by Kevin Myers’ article.

She questioned how the article had made it through the Sunday Times’ editorial process. "The apologies are all very well but how did it end up in the paper in the first place?", she said. "I would have thought after all these years I'd be immune or used to it, but that's not at all how I felt. I felt extremely upset,” she added.

The column titled "Sorry, ladies – equal pay has to be earned" highlighted that two of the best-paid female presenters, Ms Feltz and Ms Winkleman are Jewish. "Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price, which is the most useful measure there is of inveterate, lost-with-all-hands stupidity,” Mr Myers wrote.

The Sunday Times has sacked Mr Myer and removed the article from its website, which originally appeared in the paper's Irish edition.

The columnist has previously denied the Holocaust in a 2009 article for the Belfast Telegraph.

Sunday Times editor Martin Ivens has apologised personally to both Feltz and Winkleman for the "unacceptable comments both to Jewish people and to women in the workplace". "It has been taken down and we sincerely apologise, both for the remarks and the error of judgement that led to publication,” he added.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism has made a formal complaint about the article to press regulator Ipso.