Daily Mail Columnist Baz Bamigboye Joining Deadline

Longtime Fleet Street fixture Baz Bamigboye is joining Deadline as a columnist and international editor at large. Bamigboye comes from London’s Daily Mail, where he has been the newspaper’s chief chronicler of show business in the UK for three decades.

Long known for his weekly column for the DM, Bamigboye has been an authority covering the intersection of film, TV and theater, as well as the social swirl at major global festivals and during awards season long known for his weekly column for the DM, whose circulation exceeds 1.2 million. He will start at Deadline in April, and he will remain based in the UK.

“I’ve known Baz for decades and this isn’t the first time we tried to bring his talents to Deadline,” said co-editor Mike Fleming Jr., who made the hire with co-editor Nellie Andreeva. “We are glad this is happening now, as we lean in to growing our international footprint. We already have a team of stellar international reporters — as evidenced by our dominant coverage in Berlin right now — and adding a branded columnist to the mix is an important step for us. Nobody is as good in a room full of stars as Baz, who knows and has a cordial relationship with what seems like every single one of them. The affable Brit will fit right in with our culture and we look forward to all of the breaking news and compelling stories he’ll be bringing our readers.”

Bamigboye was born in Surrey and raised in Richmond Upon Thames, across the tracks from stars who lived in the area from Richard Attenborough to John Mills. He began his career as a junior reporter covering crime and five-alarm fires at Fleet Street News Agency, preferring to work nights so he could attend press screenings and receptions during the day, where he got to meet film stars. His first Fleet Street job was as general reporter at the Evening Standard, also serving as legman for the daily’s TV editor. Bamigboye was poached by The Sun, which later sent him to New York to be a correspondent. He has always done what is needed to get the story, like the time he dressed up as a singing telegram for Elizabeth Taylor’s birthday, in order to get an interview. Bamigboye got the interview, but Taylor insisted that he sing for it.

He returned to London to become Daily Mail’s chief showbiz correspondent and was later promoted to become an entertainment columnist. In that capacity, he’s covered the Oscars and every international festival and was named show business reporter of the year by the British Press Awards in 2003. He received a British Independent Film Awards’ Special Jury Prize in 2009. Bamigboye is married, has one son and two dogs and lives in London, and East Sussex.