Vanessa Feltz: Radio 2 stripped Steve Wright of positivity - it was unconscionable

As part of the exclusive serialisation of her no-holds-barred memoir, Vanessa Feltz reveals her poignant last text from her late friend Steve Wright - as she claims BBC boss Tim Davie agreed the 'axed' Radio 2 star had been treated 'shamefully'

Vanessa Feltz is not one to bite her tongue - be it on The Big Breakfast, Celebrity Big Brother, The Vanessa Show or at any point in her two plus decades on radio. So when she saw colleague after colleague leaving BBC Radio 2 and replaced by younger presenters, she definitely had something to say about it.

She’d been the voice of BBC Radio London since 2001 and had presented the early morning breakfast show on BBC Radio 2 since 2011. But in 2022, she knew it was time to jump - before she was pushed.

Here in an exclusive extract from her new memoir Vanessa Bares All: Frank, Funny and Fearless - serialised this weekend in the Mirror - the LBC star reveals why….

BY VANESSA FELTZ

The days when adored presenters David Jacobs and Desmond Carrington died in the saddle at Radio 2 were over.

It was trying to recruit a younger audience, seemingly without caring about the devoted listeners who’d been loyal to the station for decades.

Simon Mayo, squeezed out of his own show after being forced to ‘share’ with Jo Wiley the programme he’d hosted solo for eight years, packed his bags. Graham Norton headed for the hills. Craig Charles was given the heave-ho.

Unconscionably and incomprehensibly my dear friend, radio titan Steve Wright, was removed from his afternoon show despite stellar listening figures. Listeners were outraged. They'd grown up with Steve. We all had.

He’d been our friend on the radio for 40 entertaining, unpredictable, enjoyable years. Steve, devastated and trying hard to keep a lid on his heartbreak, told me personally he was turfed out of Radio 2 with no show and no job and had to ask with a meeting with Director-General Tim Davie to request (he didn't use the word beg) to keep on presenting Sunday Love Songs.

Tim Davie agreed Steve, who'd been at the Beeb 42 years, had been treated shamefully and overruled the decision. Steve retained Love Songs but lost his raison d’etre.

Stripped of his daily relationship with his audience, his gallery of guests, beloved posse and the outlet for his cauldron of creativity, he struggled to be positive.

Along with his fans and friends all over the world, I was sad beyond words when he died on February 12, 2024. His last text to me said: ‘Hi hi V. You are a gr8 broadcaster, a beautiful person. And I am a fan. Wishing u only the best xx steve.’

The cull continued. To my horror, Paul O’Grady, indisputably a radio genius with an instantly recognisable voice, original turn of phrase and caustic line in sardonic humour no one else in the world will ever be able to emulate, was told there was no longer a place for him at Radio 2. The decision was ludicrous.

Paul had never been more popular. He was beloved and irreplaceable. He told me he was privately bereft. I'd loved Paul ever since I inherited his cast-off frocks when I succeeded him on the Big Breakfast bed. To my blushing delight, he called me the ‘Delphic Sibyl’.

I combed my vocabulary for effulgent epithets to bestow on him. I loved him and admired him boundlessly. His premature death at just 67 was a body blow to millions. He was worshipped the length and breadth of Britain. His kindness illuminated all he encompassed.

If Radio 2 no longer considered Paul O’Grady an integral star in their constellation, I was sure they'd be marking my card and I'd be next to walk the plank.

Jump? Or wait to be pushed? I know which I’d prefer. And I’d been circled by poachers from rival radio stations for years.

• BBC Radio 2 has assured fans it continues to serve a 35+ audience, just as it has for many decades. A spokesperson BBC Radio 2 didn’t comment specifically on Vanessa’s comments about Director General Tim Davie, but said: “It was always planned that Steve would continue to present Sunday Love Songs on Radio 2 and he continued to do so, alongside a variety of specials, as well as Pick of the Pops on Saturdays from October 2023.” Steve passed away in February this year from a ruptured ulcer.

Vanessa Bares All: Frank, Funny and Fearless, by Vanessa Feltz (Transworld, £22), is published on October 24.

NOW READ THE MIRROR'S OTHER VANESSA FELTZ EXCLUSIVES:

Vanessa Feltz: 'Mum put me on diet aged nine and black market amphetamines at 20'

'I threw myself out of a taxi when fiance admitted he'd cheated. I thought he'd to see if I survived. He didn't'

'My parents rang from their holiday to say I looked fat in TV ad'