Thousands sign petition to bring back radio host who says he was fired
'There's no bad blood between me and the company'
Thousands of Islanders have signed an online petition to have a local radio show host put back on air, after he says he was fired.
Joee Adams, the former host of the Unbalanced Breakfast on Q93, said he was fired Thursday, Jan. 17, because of complaints made about several comments he made on-air over a period of time.
"It boiled down to the show that MBS wanted me to do, and the show that I was doing, were just two different things and we just happened to have differing opinions on how things should go," Adams said.
"There's no bad blood between me and the company."
Q93 is owned by MBS Radio and Adams said it received some "backlash" as a result of some of the language he used on the show.
Joee was the way that they started their day.— Caeleb Cormier, Adams fan
"I saw it coming for a while. A couple of months prior to this I had been suspended because of a similar situation so I knew it was coming, there was no surprises there," he said.
Adams said recent concerns were about a segment on the show called "Q of the day," where, one morning, he asked listeners about things they shouldn't do in public.
He read some of those comments on air which he said included: viewing porn in a library, peeing in the streets and giving someone a prostate exam.
Though he said the show in general was "edgy," including segments like this, he said it was all done in jest.
Petition starts, receives nearly 3,000 signatures
After he was taken off the air, Adams posted on Facebook — thanking listeners and letting them know he was no longer with Q93.
That post received hundreds of shares and comments from people sending well wishes and from others outraged to hear that he was let go.
Caeleb Cormier, a listener of Adams' show, started a petition to have the host reinstated — which had grown to about 3,000 signatures by Monday morning.
"I noticed a lot of the comments were a bunch of outraged Islanders [saying that] Joee was the way that they started their day and I agree with them," Cormier said.
"I also noticed that some people were saying that it was because some people were getting offended by what he was saying and so I thought that was absolutely preposterous … so I decided to create the petition because I thought that's what's right."
Mike Mitchell, the director of programming for MBS Radio, confirmed that Adams' work with Q93 was "concluded" on the 17th but would not disclose further information saying the company "never releases personnel information to comply with federal privacy regulations."
Mitchell said there are no current plans for filling that position.