On British television, there was a Hardeep Singh Kohli that felt truly unique. A Glasgow-based Sikh man with a turban and a sardonic sense of humor appeared on Channel 4 documentaries and BBC panel shows, symbolizing a type of British experience that the media had long disregarded. It was difficult to ignore him, and for a time, being able to see him felt significant.
Although Kohli was born in London in January 1969, his family moved to Glasgow when he was four years old. His parents were from Punjab in the 1960s; his father was a teacher who eventually accumulated a small estate portfolio in Bishopbriggs, and his mother worked as a social worker. The younger Hardeep attended the University of Glasgow to study law, where he graduated in 1990. However, the courtroom he would later be associated with would not resemble the one he may have imagined during that time.
He enrolled in BBC Scotland’s graduate production trainee program after graduating from college. At that point, the career started to take shape—not as a performer at first, but rather as someone behind the camera, directing children’s programming and eventually working on Reportage in Manchester under Janet Street-Porter. In its first season, he directed a children’s program that took home a BAFTA and a Royal Television Society award. Early recognition like that usually follows a person, and it did.
Kohli’s focus had shifted to performance and presentation by the mid-2000s. He wrote, directed, and starred in Meet the Magoons on Channel 4 in 2004. At best, the reaction was ambivalent; one critic described it as “modern to the point of surreal,” while another expressed hope that it might “evolve into something classic.” It didn’t. However, Celebrity MasterChef altered the course in 2006. He made it to the final, where he finished second to Matt Dawson, and all of a sudden his face became familiar. The kind of television that shapes people’s personalities.
What came next was the kind of schedule that implies a sincere effort to create something enduring. In Search of the Tartan Turban, a BAFTA-winning Schools documentary, cultural documentaries examining Sikh identity in Britain, political appearances on Question Time, and a cooking series with John Torode were all featured. His documentary about the so-called “Free Zone” of Scientology revealed a penchant for difficult topics. He may have had a better understanding than most of how to present himself as both an insider and an outsider, creating a tension that works well for television.
There were early indications that beneath that public persona, there was more. He was given a six-month suspension by the BBC in 2009 after unofficial accusations that he had acted inappropriately toward a researcher on The One Show. After being discreetly removed, he gradually made a comeback to television. Audiences were unaware of how frequently these incidents occurred. He competed on Celebrity Big Brother in 2018 and was evicted five times. The show marked his final major public appearance before things started to fall apart in a way that was impossible to control or discreetly put aside.
Several people voiced concerns about Kohli’s behavior in an investigation published in The Times in 2020. In August 2023, three years later, he was taken into custody and charged with alleged non-recent sexual offenses. He was accused of six sex-related offenses involving three women by August 2025. Then, more charges, including domestic abuse and rape, were brought in November 2025.
There are twenty charges in the indictment currently pending before the Glasgow High Court. They involve five women and span from 2006 to 2021. The most serious allegations, which include five rape charges against a single woman, detail a months-long period of alleged behavior. Details of alleged coercive control, such as tracking her whereabouts, sending her unsolicited photos, putting financial pressure on her, and locking her out of his house, are included in the court documents. The woman was described as inebriated and sporadically conscious during one alleged incident. These accusations are not hypothetical. If validated, they describe a pattern.
Through his legal team, Kohli, who is currently 57 years old and resides in Kelvinside, Glasgow, has refuted each of the twenty accusations. A trial date is anticipated. Although the case’s final outcome is still unknown, the proceedings are now public knowledge, and regardless of the result, his television career is essentially over.
As this develops, it seems as though the industry discreetly decided not to look too closely at the early 2009 suspension. Of course, Kohli’s situation isn’t the only one. That reckoning has already occurred on British television, but it hasn’t been completed. Visibility and accountability don’t always come at the same time, as demonstrated by Hardeep Singh Kohli’s journey from a bright Glasgow law graduate to a BAFTA acknowledgment to a courtroom dealing with two decades of accusations.
