Chris Moyles’ Friends And Foes – The People Who Like The Radio DJ, And Those Who Hate His Guts

The shock jock is back, trading in blokey bants on the newly rebranded Radio X, sporting a newly svelte physique, assuring listeners he will not literally be a shadow of his former self and appearing on the cover of the brand new NME. Chris Moyles hosted the Radio 1 breakfast show for eight years and Radio X looks to be a safe haven for all those geezers who can’t bear his successor, Nick Grimshaw. Moyles, though, has never been one for pleasing everybody. The bloke from Leeds made as many foes as friends over the years, but who’ll be taking his calls and who’ll be giving him radio silence?

Famous fans

Noel Gallagher

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The Oasis quote machine is firmly on Team Moyles. He infamously appeared on Moyles’ Radio 1 show while feeling rather, erm, ‘refreshed’ in 2008 (as he put it: “I’m still drunk!”) and pledged continuing allegiance to Moyles last week as the first guest on the DJ’s Radio X show. This time, though, he seemed not to be on the wrong end of an eight-hour bender.

Jamie Oliver

The TV chef, whose cheeky chappy persona was always a good fit for Moyles’ geezerish show, recorded a video message (always great radio) to bid farewell on the DJ’s last breakfast show in 2012. “What an incredible time and what a brilliant job you’ve done. Well done, mate,” he said. Jamie couldn’t make it the studio so sent one of his chefs to cook the team a slap-up final breakfast. Oliver also congratulated Moyles on his burgeoning film career. Wait – what?

Mel B

June 2008: radio history is made as Chris Moyles fondles former Spice Girl Mel B’s breasts and relays his findings to millions of listeners. “You look smoking,” he drooled, before asking if her boobs were real or surgically enhanced. “Do you want to feel them and find out?” she replied. He did. He did want to feel them and find out. Anyway, it’s probably safe to say Mel B is on Team Moyles.

Davina McCall

Their friendship was solidified on his Radio 1 show when he paid tribute to the TV presenter in song, reworking The Feeling’s single ‘I Love It When You Call’ with the words ‘Davina McCall’. The song appeared on Moyles’ ‘The Parody Album’, a sort of Weird Al Yankovic-style record he inexplicably released in 2009, a relic of a bygone age that no longer makes any sense, like fax machines or Comedy Dave.

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Mel C

Spice Girls have some kind of affinity with Moyles, as he and Mel C improbably appeared together in a stage production of Jesus Christ Superstar in 2012. While refuting claims that the pair were an item, she told the Daily Mirror in 2013: “Chris is one of my closest friends.” So, no zig-a-zig-ah for Chris, but at least there’s some more girl power on his team.

Famous foes

Nicola Roberts

The DJ had it in for the Girls Aloud singer during his tenure on the Radio 1 breakfast show, calling her a “sour-faced old cow” who “looked like she works at Netto” and should express more delight at being successful. He also called her “the ropey-looking ginger one” in his 2006 book One Man And His Mouth. Her riposte: “I can’t stand him… And he’s such a good-looking bloke himself, isn’t he?”

Chris Evans

Moyles waited two months to be paid by the BBC in 2010. How do we know this titillating fact about his personal finances? Because he went on and on – and on – about it during his show, ranting: “I haven’t been paid since the end of July and no-one cares about it.” Fellow radio DJ Chris Evans said Moyles had “lost perspective” and that it was “time for him to leave”.

Stonewall

The campaign group for LGBT rights is a mighty foe and, when Moyle referred to a ringtone as “gay” in 2006, they went in for the kill, naming Moyles ‘Bully of the Year’. It’s one gong the Sony Radio Award-winning DJ probably really didn’t want and the BBC insisted that “the word ‘gay’, in addition to being used to mean ‘homosexual’ or ‘carefree’, was often now used to mean ‘lame’ or ‘rubbish'”.

Halle Berry

Another 2006 incident – it was a big year for Moyles and controversy – saw his interview with Halle Berry go awry when he attempted an impression of “big, fat, black guy”, adopting an American accent and shouting “Put yo hands up in the air. I don’t wanna be shooting yo ass.” “Are we having a racist moment here?”, she asked. Words, surely, that would chill the blood of even the brashest presenter.

The Broadcasting Standards Commission

Apologies if you’ve just eaten, but in 2002 Moyles made the following stomach-churning comment about Charlotte Church. She was celebrating her 16th birthday that day and the then 28-year-old offered to “lead her through the forest of sexuality”, prompting a complaint from a listener that was then upheld by the Broadcasting Standards Commission. The real question here is – how did that remark receive only one complaint?

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