Justin Fashanu for "BBC Radio 1". Fashanu was the subject of an early internet meme in 1996 when the BBC opened their poll for the Sports Personality of the Year award to e-mail votes for the first time. An online campaign was organised among students in an attempt to enable him to win the title, but his votes were excluded from the final tally by the show's production team. In March 1998, a seventeen-year-old claimed to police that he had been sexually assaulted by Fashanu after a night of drinking. Homosexual acts were illegal in the US state of Maryland at the
Justin Fashanu a London gay bar. "We ended up in bed together at his London flat", he said. A week later, his brother John Fashanu agreed to an exclusive with "The Voice" under the headline ""John Fashanu: My Gay Brother is an outcast."" Justin Fashanu was interviewed for the July 1991 cover story of "Gay Times", where the situation was summarised as: In 1992, he agreed to front "Loud'n'proud" a new national radio series aimed at young lesbians and gay men, but the pilot with Fashanu presenting was turned down by "BBC Radio Five"; it was later commissioned with a female presenter