In case you’re wondering if there are any hard feelings lingering after Chuck Bonniwell and Julie Hayden’s “Chuck and Julie Show” was canceled by conservative KNUS 710-AM in December, listen to Bonniwell talk about his former KNUS colleagues on Bonniwell and Hayden’s new podcast, last week.
Bonniwell: Peter [Boyles] has been great. Randy [Corporon] has been great. Backbone Radio on Sunday has been great. The one person who I considered was disgraceful was Steffan [Tubbs]. He just crawled over our bodies and urinated on us. And for a guy who was arrested for abusing women.”
Hayden: The charges were dropped.
Bonniwell: They were dropped because he had a great lawyer. But he got fired. For that guy to try to brutalize Julie and our kid and everything else is disgraceful. It’s just disgraceful. He is just disgraceful, but that’s just me.”
Tubbs, who was fired from KOA after being arrested on domestic violence charges, was the most outspoken among KNUS staff and management in stating that Bonniwell had erred when Bonniwell stated that a “nice school shooting” was needed to break up the monotony of the never-ending impeachment hearing.
“There is no excuse for what was said on this radio station yesterday afternoon,” Tubbs said on air after Bonniwell’s firing. “And it’s hard because I like the guy who said the atrocious thing that he said.”
Tubbs, who interviewed the father of a school-shooting victim immediately after Bonniwell was fired, did not return a call for comment about Bonniwell’s urinating remark. The father had objected to Bonniwell’s joke.
Such utterances by Bonniwell, the publisher of the Cherry Creek/Glendale Chronicle, are an expected element in the Chuck and Julie Show, as are Hayden’s attempt to walk them back.
For example, he once called state Sen. Faith Winter of Westminster, “an overweight, unpleasant, vicious, amoral human being.”
His nice-school-shooting comment, first reported by the Colorado Times Recorder, and subsequent firing generated national media attention. Hayden is a former Fox 31 Denver reporter.
“Violence causes too much hurt to victims and their families and we truly did not intend to add to that pain,” the pair wrote on Twitter after they were fired, calling the comment a joke gone awry. “We have covered every school shooting and tragedy since Columbine and witnessed the unbearable pain and grief felt by the victims, families and community.”
