Television Work
In July 2001, Acorah was asked to feature in a new British television programme called Haunting Truths which was subsequently sold to Living and renamed Most Haunted. He worked on the show for six series until his departure in 2005. Acorah claims that he left the show to pursue other projects although the show's presenter, Yvette Fielding is reported to have said that he was asked to leave after Ciarán O'Keeffe, a parapsychologist for the show, fed him misinformation to which he later responded during an investigation, presenting himself as being possessed by the spirit of a fictional character, which led Fielding and the programme makers to question Acorah's credibility. Acorah said he was possessed by the spirit of a man called Kreed Kafer.
In a later interview the programme's parapsychologist, Ciarán O'Keeffe, said that the character was a fabrication he invented, and an anagram of "Derek faker". O'Keeffe had fed this name to Acorah prior to the programme, and he had subsequently repeated it during filming.
In a separate interview, the show's presenter and executive producer Yvette Fielding said "Unbeknown to us, Ciaran O’Keeffe had suspicions about Derek and decided to plant some information to see if it would be repeated. He left a piece of paper around with the name ‘Kreed Kafer’ on it and said, within earshot of Derek, that he was a nasty South African jailor. When we started filming, Derek decided to get possessed by this fake person. The name is actually an anagram of Derek Faker. We tell people everything is real, then it turns out he was a fake, so he had to go." She added "I was more angry than anything. I was upset that someone we considered to be close could do that."
In 2004 Acorah was presented with the Variety Club of Great Britain's Multichannel TV Personality of the Year Award, as chosen by its members.
In November 2009 Acorah featured in two programmes where he claimed to be trying to make contact with the spirit of Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson: The Live Seance and Michael Jackson: The Search For His Spirit. The show was named the worst TV programme of 2009 in a poll of more than 9,000 Yahoo! users.
On 9 March 2011 Acorah took part in a live online seance. The event was hosted by The Sun which described him as the 'UK's foremost medium'.
Read more about this topic: Derek Acorah
Famous quotes containing the words television and/or work:
“It is not heroin or cocaine that makes one an addict, it is the need to escape from a harsh reality. There are more television addicts, more baseball and football addicts, more movie addicts, and certainly more alcohol addicts in this country than there are narcotics addicts.”
—Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)
“My work is the only ground I’ve ever had to stand on. I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation—but I’m working on the foundation.”
—Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962)