DJ and presenter Sara Cox has celebrated landing her ‘dream job’ hosting the Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2 – replacing Scott Mills – with a special brunch alongside her closest pals.
Cox, 51, was announced in the job on Thursday and will launch her first breakfast edition later this year.
She is the successor to Mills, 53, who was abruptly fired from the national broadcaster in March following allegations over his ‘personal conduct’.
Taking to Instagram on Friday morning, Cox shared a sweet picture of her and two friends toasting her new role with something sparkling, over a tasty spread.
‘Pre-breakfast show announcement booze-free bubbles with the greatest 2 wing women I could wish for. Always there to cheer me on or pick me up & dust me down,’ she wrote in the caption.
‘Thank you for decades of friendship, love, support & lols @melanierockcliffe & @megancarveruk ♥️’
‘So pleased for you Sara – well deserved 🫶🏼’ responded presenter Nicki Chapman in the comments, where Julia Bradbury added: ‘Congrats! Don’t envy you the early starts 😂 🙌🏽🙌🏽 so happy for you.’
‘How could it be anyone else 🙌 really going to miss you on teatime though… can’t you do both?’ asked someone else, while fellow fan Ann Brine added: ‘Will miss you on teatime but know you are going to be the best start to my day – you’re a ray of sunshine!’
On the announcement of her moving up to breakfast time, Cox said: ‘There are not enough adjectives to really sum up how I’m feeling about being trusted with such an iconic show but let’s start with ecstatic, honoured and incredibly chuffed.
‘It’s been a dream to host the Breakfast Show since I joined Radio 2 and it feels like a bit of a full circle for me.’
She also gave a shout-out to ‘success coach’ Michael Heppell, after he celebrated her new role and said that he was ‘very proud’; they started working together in 2011.
‘My whole mindset and confidence changed when I met you @michaelheppell thank you [sic],’ she wrote across his post, sharing it to her Stories.
Addressing the news live on air during her Radio 2 weekday Teatime show last night, she added: ‘Takes quite a lot to make me speechless, but when I got asked to host the Radio 2 Breakfast Show, I was momentarily lost for words. Maybe that’s why they asked me, was it just to shut me up! But I mean, it’s always been my dream to do Breakfast, my energy has very much been waiting in the wings. “Hi, I am waiting in the wings gal! Can I have Breakfast please?!”’
Cox insisted that she ‘wouldn’t swap the last seven years of Teatime because I’ve had an absolute blast’.
‘It has been the most golden seven years of my entire 30-year career, and I’ve learnt so much from you because you’re the most hilarious, brilliant listeners and I beg you – please come to Breakfast with me. Please I will send you all £5 and a clipper card.’
She also addressed requests that she spread herself over both Breakfast and Teatime, saying that she was ‘not allowed’.
‘So I am going to be moved to Brekkie at some point, and someone excellent, someone annoyingly brilliant will be taking over this slot and I’ll be fuming! But until then it’s me and you for Teatime.’
When will Sara Cox start on Radio 2’s Breakfast Show?
As with the presenter’s vague comments herself about moving to the Breakfast Show ‘at some point’, no firm date has yet been revealed publicly.
During the announcement, the BBC merely confirmed she would start ‘this summer’.
In the interim, Gary Davies has been covering the slot – including from the time Mills was pulled off air after his March 24 show until his sacking was announced on March 30 – alongside fellow DJ OJ Borg.
Cox is continuing with Teatime for now while her replacement is confirmed, with her Radio 2 colleague Rylan Clark currently the bookies’ favourite for the job.
What other presenting roles has Sara Cox done?
Sara Cox started her broadcasting career on TV in 1996, presenting The Girlie Show on Channel 4, and later had stints on Channel 5 entertainment show Exclusive and Channel 4’s Born Sloppy.
She then scored a presenting role on MTV as the host of the late-night music show MTV Hot, before starting a presenting role with Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast, which she appeared on from 1998 – 2000 as the ‘on the bed interviewer’ talking to stars including Robbie Williams and Leonardo DiCaprio.
In 1999, she moved to the BBC, co-presenting a lunchtime Saturday show with Emma B and then fronting the Radio 1 Breakfast show the following year, taking over from Zoe Ball, until December 2003.
The next year she moved to the afternoon ‘drivetime’ slot and presented a range of shows across the Beeb, before joining Radio 2 in 2011, launching her Sounds of the 80s programme two years later.
She has hosted BBC Radio 2’s drivetime/teatime show from Monday to Friday since 2019, replacing Simon Mayo, and also stood in for the Breakfast Show last year.
Cox also remains a TV regular, having hosted The Great Pottery Show Down and appeared on episodes of The Great Celebrity Bake Off and Britain’s Top Takeaways.
She also participated in charity events with the BBC, including taking part in a non-stop 24-hour 80s Dance Challenge in 2017 for Comic Relief, where she raised £1.2million, and raising more than £9.5m for her 135-mile marathon last year in aid of Children in Need.
The star has also replaced Scott Mills in his role helming the BBC’s Eurovision Song Contest coverage, after commentating on the Eurovision semi-finals on Radio 2 last year.
Was Sara Cox a model?
Yes, before her broadcast career began, Cox started out as a professional model.
She left school shortly after completing her A-levels to give international modelling a go, heading out to South Korea.
However, being so far away from home saw her turn to comfort food – and a brutal dismissal.
‘I was homesick, so I ate all these foods, and the modelling agent said: “You got too fat, you’ve got to home!”,’ she told ITV’s Lorraine Kelly in 2019.
Cox also appeared in the music video for Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s 1993 single Everyday and on a controversial poster for the 1995 video game WipEout, covered in blood.
Shortly afterwards, she began her broadcasting career, and the rest is history.
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