BBC Radio host Nicky Campbell questions ‘dehumanising’ Steve Wright tributes

Broadcaster Nicky Campbell has said that certain tributes to Steve Wright “dehumanised” the late BBC Radio DJ, who died in February aged 69.

In a new interview, Campbell, who has been a presenter on BBC Radio since 1987, reflected on the reaction to Wright’s death last month.

The 62-year-old praised the late Sunday Love Songs host’s virtuoso radio skills calling him a “radio magician” and a “great person”. The pair began working together in the Eighties and had formed a close bond.

However, Campbell went on to say that he was left “irked” by the tributes paid to Wright.

“What kind of irks me, and I’ve got this from other people I’ve known who I felt were fantastic people and who have died, and all of a sudden everyone in a sense dehumanises them and says, ‘Oh, they were perfect in every way’, ‘They floated across the water’, and all that stuff,” he told host Gabby Logan in the latest episode of her Mid.Life podcast.

“It dehumanises them,” he explained.

“I feel like saying, ‘No. Steve was complex. We’re all complex. He could be brittle and anxious.’”

Host Logan then asked Campbell if the tributes to Wright made him think about his own mortality.

“Absolutely,” he said, before joking: “The first line in the obituary is going to be Dippy Egg from The Masked Singer.”

Wright’s death was announced by his family in February, He was best known for hosting shows on BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 for more than four decades, including the Saturday show Pick of the Pops and Love Songs every Sunday afternoon, as well as fronting Top of the Pops in the Eighties.

The news was first announced by a tearful Sara Cox on her Radio 2 show on Tuesday, who later said: “It’s really hard to know what to say about the news of Steve Wright’s passing except that we are all absolutely devastated and shocked and blindsided by this news.”

He was remembered by former colleagues and fans as a “national treasure” and “radio legend”.

It was announced a week after Weight’s death that his Sunday Love Songs slot would be hosted by Early Breakfast show presenter Nicki Chapman until Easter, when a permanent replacement will step in.

“It will be a privilege to present Sunday Love Songs in the coming weeks, so please do tune in and keep me company as I share the listeners’ favourite songs alongside their heart-warming stories and memories of loved ones,” Chapman said in a statement.

Wright’s final radio show was aired on Sunday 11 February, just two days before his death – a pre-recorded episode of Love Songs. Throughout the episode, which was a two-hour-long pre-Valentine’s show, Wright was his jolly self: he cracked jokes in between songs, read out romantic shout-outs sent in by listeners and hummed along to tunes.