Is John Sweeney married? Is he gay?

‘I poke crocodiles, if crocodiles they be, in the eye with a stick,’ this is the philosophy of writer and broadcaster and former investigative reporter, John Sweeney who is currently working for BBC Panorama. Sweeney joined BBC in 2001.He has worked for BBC for more than two decades, besides BBC, he has also worked for The Observer newspaper. Sweeney is an author of 8 books and as an investigative journalist he has helped free seven people falsely accused of killing their babies and reported on wars, revolutions and trouble in 60 countries including Romania, Algeria, Iraq, Chechnya, Burundi, Sierra Leone and Bosnia. However, he is most famous for doing an impression of an exploding tomato while investigating the Church of Scientology.  

The rumors claim that Sweeney is gay. Are the rumors true? Well it’s an Absolute No! Any rumors that claim that he is gay are baseless and false. Those rumors lack authentic information to claim that he is gay.

Sweeney is a married man. In fact he went to North Korea Uncovered along with group of London School of Economics’ students in their trip along with one more BBC staff and his wife, Tomiko. His wife Tomiko is Japanese. Both Sweeney and his wife Tomiko were LSE scholars. There are no concrete evidence of him being divorced before marrying Tomiko.

As for the trip, it was highly criticized as it risked the lives of the students. LSE indicated that they had no objection to the broadcast of the BBC Panorama documentary and that they were satisfied with how the BBC handled the trip. Although it was revealed that an agent for the North Korean government had emailed threats to the LSE, an LSE spokesman denied this. The program was watched by 5.06 million people making it the number 1 show in its time slot and the 2nd most watched show of the night. The program formed basis of one of Sweeney’s 8 books, North Korea Undercover. Sweeney surely is good at the art of presenting a story.

 

John has won several awards for his work both in print journalism and broadcasting. He received the Paul Foot Award in 2005 for his investigations on the cases of Sally Clark, Angela Cannings and Donna Anthony. He also won a Royal Television Society (RTS) award for his report for BBC One's Real Story on Angela Cannings and a Sony Gold for his File on 4 radio report on Sally Clark. He has won prizes from the RTS and Amnesty International for human rights work in Chechnya, Kosovo and Algeria and was named What the Papers Say Journalist of the Year. He won an Emmy Award and RTS prize for programs about the Massacre at Krusha e Madhe, Kosovo.

Any estimate of his net worth or salary has not been provided officially.