Greg James: Chris Moyles Mocked My Posh Roots

has revealed how would mock him for being a 'posh student' when he first started at Radio 1. 

Greg, 40, landed a gig at the BBC when he was just 21, however Chris, who was hosting the Radio 1 Breakfast show at the time, quickly formed an opinion on the eager young broadcaster. 

At the time, Greg secured the early breakfast slot on BBC Radio 1 in 2007 on an £80,000 salary, and was branded 'posh' by outspoken Chris. 

Speaking in his memoir All the Best for the Future, the Hertfordshire-born presenter, whose parents were both teachers, admitted he was shocked by the Yorkshire DJ 'winding him up'.

He recalled: 'Imagine my surprise when I turned up at Radio 1 and was thrust into the incredible daytime line-up to do the Early Breakfast Show before Chris Moyles every day, only for him to start calling me 'the posh student'.

'I really wasn't expecting that. I don't help myself with the cricket thing, but it felt reductive to be called that.' 

He wrote: 'Moyles didn't know anything about me. He had no idea what my upbringing was like.

'He saw what he thought was a nice, excited, slightly boring 21-year-old from the Home Counties with fantastic flowing indie hair who he could wind up a bit because I was new and just very happy to be there.

'But I'd also managed to make my way to the best radio station in the world at a madly competitive time.'

Despite their early clashes, Greg said the on-air sparring ultimately helped prepare him for the brutal realities of the broadcasting industry.

'Eventually we had quite a funny on-air relationship where we'd take the p*** out of each other,' he wrote.

'I guess I was just bog-standard middle class and that wasn't interesting to him. I had to prove myself and also start working out who I was. So I'm grateful for the baptism of fire.'

Greg, who succeeded Nick Grimshaw as Radio 1 Breakfast host in 2018, also paid tribute to former station star Scott Mills, describing him as one of his broadcasting heroes during his university years.

'I'd wake up extra early just to listen to the last bit of Scott's show before I had to get ready,' he wrote. 

'He was consistently funny, daring and so creative. I loved the games, the features and the spontaneity of it. It was so, so good.'

Scott was removed from the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show earlier this year following allegations relating to his personal conduct.