Sara Cox reveals Patsy Kensit's 'classy' response to a cruel TV jibe
Sara Cox has said she has a lifelong respect for Patsy Kensit after hearing her 'classy' response to a cruel jibe she made about her live on TV.
The Radio 2 star, who is about to take over the station's coveted Breakfast Show slot, has been reflecting on her three decades of fame, and how much her career – and the media landscape – has evolved.
Sara started her broadcast career after landing an audition for The Girlie Show in the mid-Nineties. She was just 21 at the time and had been focusing on modelling after being scouted during a chance meeting in Paris.
After calling the producers every day, Sara landed a presenting role on the outlandish Channel 4 show, where each week she would nominate a 'W***** of the Week' and then explain why they deserved the accolade. One week she called out Patsy, telling the camera: 'Your lips are like your knees. They never meet.'
'Shortly after that I saw Liam Gallagher [Kensit's husband at the time] backstage at Top of the Pops and he wasn't overly impressed with me,' she has now admitted. 'I was quietly devastated because I loved Oasis.'
It was a different story when she ran into Patsy herself though, as she told The Sunday Times Magazine: 'I went to Nobu and Patsy Kensit was there and she waved me over.'
Sara Cox has a lifelong respect for Patsy Kensit after hearing her 'classy' response to a cruel jibe she made about her live on TV. Sara pictured in 1997
Sara nominated Liam Gallagher's wife Patsy as her 'W***** of the Week' while presenting The Girlie Show. Patsy and Liam pictured in 1999
'She was so friendly and classy. It was either the ultimate kill-it-with-kindness – or she hadn't seen the telly or she just thought I was young and silly and who cares? I've always really respected her after that.'
She explained that she would never dream of saying anything like that today but she doesn't regret the show that kickstarted her broadcast career and allowed her to leave home in Bolton.
'I wrote my own monologues and I obviously liked getting a laugh, which is something I'd always gone for as the youngest of five. People expect me to recoil and to be embarrassed but I wouldn't be sitting here now if it wasn't for that show.'
She is also not ashamed of the ladette label, awarded to her and pals like Zoe Ball during the hedonism of the nineties and early noughties.
'We went out and had fun but we were still ambitious, conscientious people,' she pointed out. 'When I speak to women who are 40 now, teenagers then, they thought it was fantastic that we had a voice and we could just be ourselves and have no shame. It was always twisted to be about downing pints, which it never was for me.'
Next up for Sara is the biggest job in radio, taking over the Radio 2 Breakfast Show next week following the axing of her friend Scott Mills.
It was announced in April the presenter, 51, would take over the Breakfast Show after Scott was sacked when it was discovered he had been the subject of allegations of 'serious sexual offences' against a teenage boy under 16.
Sara and Scott have been friends and BBC colleagues for three decades, since they both started at Radio 1 within a year of one another in the late Nineties. Sara was a guest at Scott and husband Sam's 2024 wedding.
Sara is preparing to take over the biggest radio job in the country, when she steps up to the mic on July 6 to launch her Radio 2 Breakfast Show
In May, the Daily Mail's Katie Hind revealed Scott is suing the BBC after it axed him.
Scott believes he was unfairly dismissed and his legal team at the London-based firm Level Law has been corresponding with the corporation, his employers for 28 years, for weeks.
Friends of Scott believe he was used as a 'scapegoat' by the BBC's then outgoing director-general Tim Davie, who took a zero-tolerance approach after a string of recent scandals relating to Huw Edwards, Gregg Wallace and Jermaine Jenas.
"What I will never do is give up" – Kimmich rules out international retirement after Germany's World Cup exit
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Germany captain Joshua Kimmich is not considering retiring from international football after Monday's heartbreaking World Cup exit to Paraguay.
"I'll always have the determination to make another attempt. What I will never do is give up," Kimmich told MagentaTV after the match.
AdvertisementAdvertisementThe 31-year-old, who was also part of the squads that crashed out in the group stage at the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, converted his penalty in the shootout. However, it wasn't enough to prevent another disappointing tournament exit.
"I grew up in Germany watching the national team on television, and it always seemed to be the semifinals or the final. Of course, you want to give today's children, the people, and this generation that same experience. The fact is, we weren't able to give the people back home that," Kimmich said.
According to Kimmich, everyone in the team must take full responsibility for the latest failure.
“It's a real shame, especially at a time when it would do us so much good to have something in Germany we can be proud of. Unfortunately, the national team isn't that right now, and we all share responsibility for it,” he said.
"We have to take responsibility – no one can distance themselves from it. We have to own it, because we, the players who were on the pitch, are the ones who messed it up."
Taylor Swift won over Kelce's skeptical friend in backstage encounter
Taylor Swift won over another new fan in Travis Kelce's friend Taylor Lewan, days before the American power couple are expected to get married at New York's Madison Square Garden.
Swift joined Kelce last week for his annual 'Tight End University' - an event he helps plan for practice and networking with players who play in the position where the Kansas City Chiefs star made his name.
Swift has sprinkled some stardust over the last two events with a brief performance at the concert they host each year and this time, ex-NFL man turned podcast host Lewan got to witness Swift preparing to perform backstage.
Speaking on his popular Bussin' With The Boys podcast, Lewan explained: 'I'll just tell you this, dude - I was kind of into her music when I was younger. I haven't been super into it since then. It is just not my genre.
'The girl is incredible. What a performer. We are sitting backstage for a moment and she's about to go out. She's got a cluster, she's got a gaggle of individuals with her. But she's in the back before she walks out and you can see her just getting in the zone.
'I remember just looking at her being like "it is so cool that somebody who is as successful as she is, as famous as she is, she just handles her business the correct way at all times".
Taylor Swift stunned fans with a surprise performance at Travis Kelce's Tight End University
Swift joined Travis Kelce (left) alongside Claire Kittle, George Kittle, Greg Olsen and Talbot Olsen (L-R) at the opening event of Tight End University on Monday
Bussin' With The Boys host Taylor Lewan was impressed by Swift's performance last week
'And for her to sit back, get in the zone and go out and put on a performance, whether it was three minutes or five minutes, it was a very short amount of time, but the pop from the crowd... everybody in that moment felt like she was singing individually to them. And I thought that was just awesome.'
Swift joined Lainey Wilson on the stage to perform her hit 'Love Story' and dedicated it to Kelce's friend and rival tight end George Kittle, who plays for San Francisco 49ers.
'She probably misses ball!' Lewan joked about the lengthy NFL offseason. 'She misses ball a little bit, dude! But she was awesome. It was just really cool to watch people who are outliers in their craft perform.
'And I thought she is clearly that, the biggest superstar in the world. It is just awesome to see all that going down, all while our boy Trav is just bobbing around, stoked to kind of like be there.'
Swift and Kelce are expected to tie the knot this weekend in New York at the city's most iconic venue.
There were people in the industry who wondered if their plans to marry at MSG were a high-profile decoy but Daily Mail earlier this week shared pictures of equipment getting loaded into the venue, seemingly in preparation for the big day.
It remains to be seen if Lewan is going. He has known Kelce for around 10 years but the guestlist has been kept quiet and those attending have been sworn to secrecy.
And if, as Lewan suggested, Swift is missing football then she doesn't have too much longer to wait.
Kelce's Chiefs team start the season with a Monday Night Football showdown against AFC West rivals Denver Broncos on September 14 at Arrowhead Stadium.
