13 February 2024 , 17:48
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Fans are in mourning following the death of legendary DJ Steve Wright at 69.
For decades, millions of people tuned in every weekend to hear the most romantic show on British radio. On Steve Wright's Sunday Love Songs, the veteran DJ played heartfelt dedications for listeners and told stories of real-life romance. Along with his main show, Steve Wright in the Afternoon, it helped push the Radio 2 star to a high spot in the BBC earnings league.
But the irony was that work left Steve with no time for a romance of his own. His marriage broke up 25 years ago, and he said there was simply no time to find a new partner.
In a rare admission about his personal life, he told The Mirror in 2019: "I work on an afternoon show on the BBC and I do a love songs show at the weekend and it means that I do a lot of interviews and I prep a lot and I write a lot. So I have to work all the time."
Famously quiet outside work with little interest in the showbiz round of parties and openings, Steve lived in central London just a five-minute stroll from Broadcasting House where he spent so much of his time.
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Steve with wife Cyndi before their 1999 divorce (INS)
Steve, pictured in 1979, has been one of the BBC's most popular broadcasters for decades (Getty)Although he was a regular presenter on Top of the Pops in the 1980s, he never sought any more television fame and said that allowed him more privacy than most stars at the BBC.
“I don't do a great deal of TV so I’m not recognised much," he told one interviewer. His home was shared with his daughter Lucy. His son Tom, a more social animal than his dad who was a friend of the late Amy Winehouse, was close by too.
Their parents’ marriage came to end in 1999 after Steve and US-born Cyndi Robinson decided to live separately. “It came out of the blue,” a friend previously told The Mirror. “Cyndi just said, ‘That’s it. I’m off.’ He thought they were forever.”
Steve once recalled the moment he knew Cyndi was the one. "We were watching the Mike Leigh play Abigail’s Party on television when I looked at her and just thought: 'I love this woman.'"
At the height of his career, the radio host would spend three hours on the air, five days a week and another two on Sunday for his pre-recorded Love Songs show, leaving little time to find a new partner.
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He is said to have been devastated when his weekday afternoon slot was axed after 23 years in 2022 in one of the biggest schedule shake ups the station has ever seen. "Sometimes people don't want you," confessed Steve as he walked out of the BBC studios, but he confirmed he would still be working on Radio 2 in some capacity.
He continued: "I've been offered loads of stuff at the BBC and I'm staying at Radio 2. What it actually means for me is rather than working six days a week, I'll be working maybe two and a half days a week."
Steve, who was named as the BBC's fifth highest-earning presenter with an income in 2018-19 between £465,000 and £469,000 back in 2019, was drawing in up to eight million listeners in 2015.
But when asked if he thought he had become indispensable, he simply replied: "No. I don't think I am indispensable at all."
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