[Jack_]

His first newspaper interview in four years with Dan Wooton is in The Sun tomorrow, but it's been published online and is a great read!

I may be the saviour of digital radio
EXCLUSIVE: Former BBC star Chris Moyles is back on air... and fighting fit

AFTER three years in the showbiz wilderness, CHRIS MOYLES is a shadow of his former self. In more ways than one.

We’re sitting in his beloved local pub in North London, but for lunch he’s just ordered a chicken salad and a pint . . . of water.

To illustrate just how much he’s changed, Chris is talking me through how many miles he’s run this week (35-and-a-half, it turns out, in six separate jogs).

But reports of Moyles’ retirement have been greatly exaggerated — radio’s most controversial host is back.

Two weeks today, he’ll be going head-to-head with his Radio 1 breakfast show successor NICK GRIMSHAW on Radio X, a new national commercial station that will replace XFM after 23 years.

Radio X will be digital in most of the country, apart from London and Manchester where it will have an FM frequency.

It’s a comeback that has been secretly planned for months — and the stakes are high.

Radio giant Global is pumping millions into the new station, which will feature an A-list new line-up built around Moyles, who is now 41.

This is his first interview in four years and he admits to being “nervous” — something I’ve never seen during our many feisty encounters over the past decade.

He’s far more thoughtful and measured than when he got Radio 1’s biggest gig 11 years ago and quickly declared he was the BBC station’s “saviour”.

“I’ve been off the grid. I haven’t done anything in the public eye for the last few years,” he tells me.

“But I’m really genuinely happy at the moment. I’m very content with my life and at a really good place. I’m a lot more positive than I used to be.

“I think one of the reasons is because I’m not on the radio every day I’m not subconsciously looking for things to take the p*** out of.

“Plus, I’m not getting up really stupidly early in the morning.

“If you’re getting up any time before 6am it’s s*** and it really affects you.”

All that begs one obvious question . . .

He says: “I see the underlying question you’re asking is, ‘Why ******* up that happiness by going back to quarter to five alarm clocks?’

“Because I think it’s time. People are always asking me when I’m going back to the radio. Even though it’s years since I left.”

Chris stresses his entertainment exile was entirely self-imposed. “I wanted to take some time off. I took a year off but it went really quickly so I thought I’d have another year off,” he says.

“It was really quiet for the first six months or so. I was thinking: ‘Oh my God, literally nobody wants to give him a job.’

“When you’re at the very top, your options are limited — and I’m an acquired taste.

“I didn’t miss it enough to want to go back to radio just to be on. But I never retired, contrary to what other papers have said.”

Was he bothered by people suggesting he was a spent force?

He laughs wryly, before saying to me accusingly: “You might have been one of those people talking about two years ago.”

He’s referring to my reports about his brief foray into live broadcasting on the mobile phone app Periscope, which was not exactly a big success.

But in fairness, I’ve been astonished it’s taken this long for a commercial station to snap up Moyles, given the continued loyalty from his former listeners and their obvious dislike of Grimmy on Radio 1.

Did you have enough money to live without working?

“Yes,” he answers nonchalantly. “I’m really lucky. I worked on Radio 1 for 15 years and I don’t have a lavish lifestyle.”

For the first time today, Chris admits he was sacked from the breakfast show on Radio 1 by the station’s controller Ben Cooper.

He had intended to see out ten years as host of the breakfast show before quitting live on air.

But Chris reveals: “Ben called me in for a meeting and said: ‘It’s time. We need to wrap this up.’

“I’d done eight-and-a-half years. I’d decided at nine-and-half-years I’d turn the mic on one morning and say: ‘When my contract runs out at Christmas, I’m not going to re-sign. I’m off.’

“That would have been ten years on the Breakfast Show. So my reaction when Ben told me was: ‘You s***bag, you’ve just blown my announcement by a year.’”

Chris was offered his pick of any other role on Radio 1 but he says: “I’d always said that when I stopped doing the Breakfast Show, I would leave. I didn’t really have any intention of coming back.”

Despite speculation, Chris insists there were no discussions about him joining Radio 2, saying: “I don’t think I’m the right fit for them. That was never, ever, ever in my head at all.”

Now he’s going to cause a serious headache to Grimmy, whose Radio 1 show has already shed millions of listeners in the station’s bid to attract younger listeners.

Chris says Radio 1’s desire to take the station so young is “quite frankly b******s”, adding: “People grow up with it and they don’t want to leave it. It’s an unnecessary change.”

He adds cheekily: “I don’t care if you’re 25, 45, 85, 15, male, female, gay, straight, black, white, I don’t care. I’ll have everybody. You will be welcome with open arms and you don’t need to pay for us.”

Chris is generally supportive of Grimmy but it’s clear he thinks his breakfast show is morphing closer into the show he had been doing for many years.

So has he done a good job? “Well . . . ” Chris stammers. “He’s certainly done the job they’ve asked them to do. Well no, he’s tried to do the job they asked him to do. But it’s an impossible task.

“It was going to be all different and all about the music without people in the studio, but it is.

“They have a couple of features that are actually quite similar to what we did.”

Chris adds: “It will be turned into this big war but we’re going for different audiences.”

Moyles says his personal relationship with Grimmy is cordial, but he can’t resist a little tease.

“He’s the main person from Radio 1 who I keep bumping into.

“We always have a chat and a hug and say we’re going to hang out, but then Nick never does anything about it because, guess what, he’s lost in that breakfast world where he’s a zombie.

“Actually Nick looks really good. He hasn’t gone through that fat breakfast DJ stage yet.

“I have no idea how he’s done it but he’s very wise.”

So how big does Moyles think his new show can be?

“I genuinely don’t know. I want to double the audience that exists on that show now.”

Is he the saviour of Radio X? “I don’t know . . . I might be the saviour of digital radio.”

And in that one moment, a flash of the old Moyles swagger reappears.

He smiles and says: “I’m 41 which I can’t *******ing quite believe. But that means I can just be me.”

‘I've got control’

CHRIS has poached top Radio 1 producer Pippa Taylor to run his new show and newsreader Dominic Byrne will be back.

But ALED JONES and Comedy Dave Vitty won’t be.

Chris explains: “Aled’s an editor at the BBC now so is staying. Dave’s not going to do the show because he’s got his own production company, but I can’t replace him.”

Moyles caused the BBC headaches with a string of controversial items that sparked complaints and negative headlines. But he has no intention of toning any of that down for Radio X.

He says: “I was very clear it had to be with my team and me doing what I want to do, carte blanche. The fact I can do whatever I want is a huge thing for me.

“Radio’s very safe in this country. You don’t have to do a lot to shock people.

“They know what they’re hiring. I’ve said I’ll get figures up and make them money if they let us get on with it.”

Slimming ‘so hard’

CHRIS has kept the weight off after settling down with a new girlfriend who he won’t name but says isn’t famous.

His body transformation is “mainly” down to a completely overhauled diet.

“My weird problem is that I don’t eat enough now,” he says.

His eating regime consists of an omelette before he trains in the morning, salad for lunch and a small dinner.

He says: “I don’t know what I used to think when I looked in the mirror when I was at my worst.

“Now if I go out on a Friday or Saturday and have a few beers, I can see that I’m bloating in the mirror on Sunday.”

But he admits: “I fall off the wagon sometimes and buy a pack of salt and vinegar chip sticks and a pack of cookies and eat them, and I feel bad about myself and cry myself to sleep. That happens.

“It’s really, really, really hard to lose weight. I don’t care what anyone says. It’s easier to say than to do.”

Read the article on The Sun website here