Sara Cox has something she needs to clear up.
In August, the 47-year-old posted on Instagram to announce she and her husband Ben Cyzer had renewed their vows at Camp Bestival – nine years after they got married.
And as we sit down to chat with the presenter, she laughs as she explains she thought her fans would have realised it was a joke.
“I don’t think I made it very clear in that post – it’s just a joke thing that you do at Camp Bestival,” she explains. “So you just sign up. We signed up the day before. I mean, look at what I’m wearing! It’s an inflatable church, the DJ was called Jesus.
“Next to the inflatable church was a little marquee that had all these old wedding dresses, like these really manky wedding dresses, because obviously it’s a festival. They’ve been worn by hundreds of people before.”
Discussing her bridal attire, which was an off-white frock complete with flower garland, Sara says, “I just shoved mine on over my shorts. I thought people would understand from the posts that it was [a joke]. I mean, my husband had a leopard-print shirt on! Three of us renewed our vows together and two of the grooms had red polka dot jackets on. My husband’s best mate had a Donald Duck cap. So we presumed people realised, but yeah, it was really fun to do that at Bestival.”
As we head into autumn, Sara reflects on how DJing at Camp Bestival was one of the highlights of her summer, as she was reunited with her old friend Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, for the first time “in donkey’s years”.
“It was really lovely to see him. Norman was lovely with my nephew and my niece who were there. They’re in their twenties and Norman is obviously pretty iconic. He let them on the side of the stage, he did selfies with them. I always judge people by how they treat my friends and family and Norman was super-lovely with them. He’s always been lovely, but it was really nice. He really made that weekend – and I got some good auntie points.”
The presenter, who has hosted BBC Radio 2’s drivetime show since January 2019, also managed to sneak some family holidays with her three children – Lola, 18, Isaac, 14, and Renee, 12 – into her busy summer schedule.
“We’ve had a really lovely summer,” she says. “After the last couple of years it was really nice to get away. We had a trip to Greece and we had a trip to Menorca.
“We had a couple of months where we were doing something every single weekend, it was quite full-on. I didn’t miss the pandemic – I don’t want to say that at all – but it was definitely busy this summer. But also there were quieter, nicer things that we did as well. We got into a bit of a habit of getting up quite early on a Sunday during the pandemic and taking the big dog to the Heath so that she could go and have a swim, so we’ve carried on with that.”
Sara’s dogs, Dolly and Daisy, are the reason we are chatting, as she has teamed up with YuMove to help launch a range of doggy dental care sticks.
As part of the campaign, Sara posted a photo of herself wearing a fake pair of rotting teeth to raise awareness for canine dental health.
“A lot of people erroneously were like, ‘Wow, I did wonder,’” she says of the reaction to the image. “They were like, ‘We thought you managed to keep those gnashers hidden for years,’ thinking they were my actual teeth! I like that I can poke a bit of fun at myself, but the message behind it was quite serious – that we look after our own teeth and we’ve got to look after our pets’ teeth as well.”
