Greg James may be the ray of sunshine we look forward to on the radio each morning, but he’s revealed there was a moment he came close to quitting the Radio 1 slot.
The presenter took over the hosting slot of the BBC morning show in 2018 after Nick Grimshaw’s departure, but, at the start of the Covid pandemic wasn’t sure if he could continue on.
In fact, Greg – who earns between £310,000 and £314,999 per year for his work at the BBC, per the latest Beeb figures – has revealed how close he came to throwing in the towel.
He told The Independent: ‘I had a conversation with my boss and I was just like “I can’t do it any more”. I can’t pretend to be happy when I’m sad and everyone else is sad.’
While he didn’t have anywhere to go, job-wise, he added: ‘But the team and I were just like, “How do we keep this going while we’re worrying about all the other things in our lives?’”
The star was eventually talked down from quitting, and good thing, too, with Greg bringing us several iconic moments throughout the pandemic – most brilliantly his vaccination song…
Explaining his producer pointed out that everyone was anxious and fed up with the situation, not just him, Greg said: ‘You’re a long time not on the Breakfast Show. It’s a privilege to get to do it. And it’s going well. So, I’m just going to keep going until I don’t like it any more.’
Last year Greg had no qualms with calling out some who complained that his show had ‘gone down’ during lockdown, after he shared a message the team had received from an unimpressed listener.
‘Morning Greg I still look forward to your show but during this pandemic it’s gone down I am considering switching to BBC Two Thanks Trucker Dan,’ the sweet note read.
But the host was having none of the message, and promptly put ‘Trucker Dan’ on blast on Instagram.
Alongside the screenshot, he wrote: ‘The support and understanding from our listeners at this time is truly heartwarming.
‘It’s really keeping us all going x.’
It really did keep him going, as well, with Greg (who was also locked in a caravan in the pandemic, on another Radio 1 prank) going on to front the BBC Radio One campaign to find 193 people in 193 countries around the world to flip off Covid, with the Up Yours Corona initiative going down swimmingly.
People all over the globe have been affected by the pandemic and are feeling the same frustrations, with Greg giving them a public platform to vent in his video.
A selection of the messages were played out to the capita at Piccadilly Circus in London on Wednesday and also on Radio 1, with people delivering the same line ‘up yours corona’ in their native languages.
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