Sara Cox has asked listeners to “show me some love” as she steps into her new role hosting the biggest breakfast show in the country.
The Bolton-born DJ kicked off her new role as the host of BBC Radio 2’s Breakfast show on Monday morning with Lizzo’s About Damn Time.
She also played Three Lions by David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and The Lightning Seeds following England’s 3-2 victory against Mexico at the World Cup.
The presenter started her programme reading out messages from listeners and encouraging them to keep the texts coming.
She said: “It is a Monday. It’s my first show, and your favourite DJ, me feeling little bit clingy, as per, and I want some love.”
She also recounted her husband, Ben Cyzer’s, attempt at watching the England match highlights without any spoilers, however, did not manage to escape fans’ enthusiasm at the result.
She said: “Spoiler alert, I might mention the football just for six seconds, and then come back to me, but my husband last night slept downstairs so I could get a good night’s sleep, and he was like, ‘I’m gonna wake up in the morning, I’m gonna watch the footy highlights, so don’t tell me who won, don’t tell me the score or anything’.
“So he’s laying in the front room and he just wakes up, and he hears a football fan coming down the street, ‘Where were you when we won 3-2?’
“And he’s like, ‘no!'”
She also thanked Gary Davies who who was “parachuted in” to fill the slot after Scott Mills was taken off air in March.
She said: “For the past few months, a legend has been doing breakfast, and we can’t not say thank you to him this morning.
“He was parachuted in. He did a proper shift. The one, the only, you love him, Mr Gary Davies.”
Cox also played Stupid Song by Olivia Rodrigo, Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen and Finally by CeCe Peniston ahead of her first guest appearance on the show, Hollywood actor Tom Hanks.
She was announced as the new host for the weekday breakfast slot (6.30am-9.30am) in April and permanent replacement for Mills.
Mills was sacked by the BBC shortly before it emerged that the Metropolitan Police launched an investigation into the 53-year-old in 2016 over allegations of serious sexual offences involving a boy aged under 16 between 1997 and 2000.
Cox previously hosted the station’s teatime weekday slot (4pm-7pm).
Listeners can tune in to Sara Cox’s breakfast show on BBC Radio 2 and BBC Sounds.
