Chris Evans

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is a broadcaster. During the 1990s he was the whiz kid of the airwaves, the man with a magic touch, whose every show on radio or television caught the mood of the nation and drew tumultuous response. Born and brought up in a working class family in Warrington in Lancashire, he got a job in local radio in Manchester and then moved to London, where first on local radio and then with television shows such as The Big Breakfast and TFI Friday he became popular, rich and famous. His noisy, boozy lifestyle matched his irreverent image, and so did the rows he seemed to have wherever he worked, Radio One and Virgin Radio, where he'd succeeded in buying the whole station and making himself a millionaire.

Presenter1:09

But in the end, the roistering and the arguments seemed to overtake him, and he announced he was taking a long holiday. It's all been pretty quiet since then, but this autumn he landed back gently on Radio Two as presenter of its Saturday afternoon show. I still haven't got a clue how I got here, he says, except that I've got a load of energy. That's the one thing that's been constant through my life. He is Chris Evans. So more than four years, four and a half years, Chris, off the airwaves, which is amazing for somebody who for whom broadcasting was a kind of lifeblood. Where have you been? What have you been doing? Nothing?

Chris Evans1:45

I've been doing um I've been living a life. Um I've been

Chris Evans1:50

Mostly in the country, uh by that I mean in Surrey, in a little cottage, two bedroom cottage, with a few chickens, less and less as the foxes come by every night, two cows, three three sheep, two donkeys and three goats, and the local pub and the pond.

Presenter2:05

Living a life meaning got my life back, isn't it?

Chris Evans2:05

There we go.

Chris Evans2:07

Well, actually a different life. You know, I'm not the person that I was when I was younger. Done a bit of gardening, grew some vegetables, realised that you can grow far too many of the wrong type that you'll never use. Picked some fruit and uh realized you can't do much with that either'cause there's far too much of it and there's already too much jam in the world. And um looked at the stars and the sky and just very simple things really.

Speaker 22:24

Uh

Presenter2:24

There's already too much

Presenter2:30

So it's been the good life in the Felicity Kendall sense.

Chris Evans2:34

Yeah, they spend

Presenter2:34

You spent all the money you made.

Chris Evans2:36

No. Spent some of it.

Presenter2:37

Waded through quite a bit of it, I suspect.'Cause you wa I mean in the beginning you went off on on a big long holiday, didn't you, with your new then new wife, Billy Piper.

Chris Evans2:46

Yeah, well, we didn't go on holiday. We actually went to live in America, and we did live in America. And we didn't go around the world as people think we did.

Presenter2:51

What did she call it? Our big bowl trip?

Chris Evans2:53

Yeah, did she call it that? Yeah. It was sort of that, I suppose.

Presenter2:54

Yeah.

Presenter2:56

But you so you sloughed it all off, really, did you? The the kind of the tabloids being after you and that whole intense life that you'd been leading for ten years before. I mean, you were running on empty by the time you ran, weren't you?

Chris Evans3:08

Without doubt, yeah, I was definitely running an empty probably before actually. Um but no, I didn't slough the the tabloid stuff off, it's never bothered me, all that stuff. The press is part and parcel of my life and they make me what I am.

Presenter3:11

Hmm.

Presenter3:20

But we now have this image of you, you know, in this little cottage, as you say, which is at the gates, I think, of the the big house you used to own. You sold that, but you kind of see it through your window every day.

Chris Evans3:31

I can see it. It's only fifty yards away.

Presenter3:33

But having once owned it,

Chris Evans3:34

I feel so I feel the opposite of what you imagine. I'm so happy not to have it anymore.

Presenter3:39

Hmm.

Chris Evans3:39

I see it and it makes me happy that I don't own it.

Presenter3:39

Uh

Presenter3:42

So we shouldn't feel sorry for you. We shouldn't feel this is a man who's been reduced by life. This is a man who's actually found his right place in it, is that we say.

Chris Evans3:51

I don't want you to feel sorry for any reason, not just that, but uh I've had a very fortunate life, a very colourful life. I al always think that if I go tomorrow I've had my fair share.

Presenter4:00

And you're not even forty yet.

Chris Evans4:02

No, but I'm I am forty in a few months.

Presenter4:04

Heading that way. Come on, let's have some music. What's the first time?

Chris Evans4:07

Okay, the first song is ELO, The Electric Light Orchestra. It's a song called Sweet Talking Woman. The Electric Light Orchestra was the first band I ever saw in concert, and I saw them at the NEC in Birmingham when I was 14 years old. I went with my brother, who was my hero. I've since learned never take a young child to the best concert you may ever go to, because you can only be disappointed after that. And it still is the best concert I've ever been to, and this is a great song.

Speaker 44:31

I was searching, searching on a one-way street. I was hoping, hope that, for a chance to meet. I was waiting for the operator on the line. He's gone so high. What could I do? What could she? No, no, no.

Presenter4:59

The LO, the Electric Light Orchestra and Sweet Talking Woman. Were you always, Chris, why are you laughing? Did I say that strangely?

Chris Evans5:06

Um, the yellow. I've never I've never heard them called the yellow before.

Presenter5:09

What do you say then?

Chris Evans5:10

No, it's I I'm you know, they are the electric light orchestra, but you don't ev use the the normally with the

Presenter5:15

Normally

Presenter5:16

No definite argument. Okay, I'll do that again. ELO, electric light or something.

Chris Evans5:19

No no C colour either. It's yellow. Well, you can do what you want, by the way.

Chris Evans5:24

I think we should go call them the yellow from now on.

Presenter5:26

The yellow, you know, that's really good. Let's go back to Warrington, to you. I mean, was.

Chris Evans5:27

That's what you can do.

Presenter5:31

A kind of success always on the cards in this is that you're a bit driven, always going to be.

Presenter5:36

was going to do something even if you didn't know what it was.

Chris Evans5:40

Well

Chris Evans5:41

I just thought the world was a very exciting place, I still do.

Chris Evans5:44

Everything I did I enjoyed, you know, so whether it's playing table tennis at the Youth Club or whether it's doing my own newspaper round or working behind the counter at the shop at the news agents where I worked, I just thought l you know, life was great.

Presenter5:55

But you said that the death of your father, which is when you were fourteen, wasn't it uh let me quote you fired the starting pistol in in in this race and and you perhaps didn't stop running until you were thirty five. Can you explain that?

Chris Evans5:59

Wasn't it?

Chris Evans6:08

Yeah, um I actually can't remember

Chris Evans6:12

the drive being as um concrete before he died as opposed to after he died, so I presume it must be that. But it didn't at the time I didn't hear a starting gun. You know, there wasn't a man there anymore um to protect us, so you better get on with this life.

Presenter6:26

So you felt a bit of a breadwinner.

Chris Evans6:28

No, not at all, because my mum that when my dad died, and I hope my mum doesn't mind me saying this, we had eighty pounds in the bank and um we owned a council house and, you know, there were two adults earning and now there's only one. Mum was a nurse. And um about three years after dad died, we had more money than that in the bank and we owned our house. So

Presenter6:49

Is that your mum's efforts or yours?

Chris Evans6:49

No, totally. My mum's no, I didn't have to contribute I didn't have to go to work to contribute to the coffers. And my mum didn't ask me for any money until I got my first real job when I was seventeen.

Presenter6:54

Memoirs.

Presenter6:58

But you've also said that probably if your dad hadn't died you wouldn't have been allowed to do.

Presenter7:04

what you've since done. I mean, the the sense I pick up that he wouldn't have approved of what you went on to do and how you went on to become a bit of a hellraiser.

Chris Evans7:13

Well oh, I don't think he'd approved of the Hellraising at all. Um but I mean my dad was he used to sing as well, um which I didn't find out till about three years ago. So he wouldn't have minded show business per se. And my mum has always been very entertaining.

Presenter7:25

He just wanted you to be respectable.

Chris Evans7:27

Um well yeah.

Presenter7:29

I said I'm not saying you're not, but you don't mean that.

Chris Evans7:30

No, I know exactly what you mean. Absolutely. Um, but I just think I would have been a different person because when he did die, I did have more freedom. So, yeah, things would have been different, but not because he wouldn't have let me. Things would just have been different.

Presenter7:32

Yeah.

Chris Evans7:46

Picker number two.

Chris Evans7:47

Record number two is Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street and it's rubber ducky and this was the first single I ever received. I'd say it it's the first thing I've ever bought but it's it wasn't because it was in my stocking and Ernie is the unstoppable sunny disposition and Bert is the reluctant grump but he's a reluctant grump who secretly wants to be happy like I think a lot of people.

Speaker 48:12

Oh, Rubber Ducky, you're the one. You make bath time lots of fun. Rubber Ducky, I'm awfully fond of you.

Speaker 48:24

Vo vot vodio, Rubber ducky, joy of joys. When I squeeze you, you make noise. Rubber ducky, you're my very best friend, it's true.

Presenter8:38

That was Burt and Ernie's rubber ducky from the children's programme Sesame Street. That was recorded in nineteen seventy. Um as far as school was concerned, Chris Evans, I presume, you know, being ginger was terrible and a bit puny, I I gather.

Chris Evans8:52

Yeah, puny, um glasses as well and ginger hair. Um but after the first six months you get used to it, so I was fine with that.

Presenter9:00

And you were clever, you were bright, you were good at lessons.

Chris Evans9:03

I wasn't good at lessons, I was clever and bright.

Presenter9:05

I see. You were bored in less than

Chris Evans9:06

Oh, yeah, interminably.

Presenter9:08

Why did you leave?

Chris Evans9:09

I left because I had an incident with a teacher who uh punched me and um

Chris Evans9:16

I I just didn't think it was right that you could punch someone and I just got up and walked out, went home.

Presenter9:20

Hmm.

Presenter9:21

So that was the first time you walked out.

Chris Evans9:22

Yeah.

Presenter9:22

We'll remember that,'cause there's some more to come on it.

Chris Evans9:24

Yeah, I was practicing for the future.

Presenter9:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you went to the comp and you stayed on in the sixth form and then you had a kind of run in there with with the headmaster, didn't you?

Chris Evans9:33

Yeah, well yeah, it was a it was a very mild running, but um I opened a tuck shop because I was working at the news agents at the time and so I had an account with the local wholesalers. So I got all this stuff and opened a sort of rival tuck shop. Did so well that the headmaster called me and said, You know, you've got to close this rival tuck shop down. So I said, Why? He said, um, because school fund is is losing out because of you. I said, well, look, what I'll do is I'll put all my prices up and then the difference between my original price and the new price I'll give to School Fund. And he said, no, no, you don't understand. I said, but that's a great deal. You know. He said, no, no, you don't understand. So actually he was just saying, We're going to close you down f'cause we can. And I said, Okay, I I can't really be here anymore then in any way, shape or form if that's the way you go about it.

Presenter10:14

Yeah.

Chris Evans10:14

So

Presenter10:15

Well end of school career.

Chris Evans10:16

Yeah, that was it.

Presenter10:17

No A levels.

Chris Evans10:18

Yeah.

Presenter10:19

But the entrepreneur is there, as we can hear. Did you then develop that? Is that what you then set out to do? Do something else that was going to make money?

Chris Evans10:25

Well, no, then I w then what I did was I I went into the news agents full time and um that's when I started listening to the radio because I used to get up in the morning at five well, half past four. The radio was my friend in the morning. And the radios can be warm, you know, you can actually feel warmth off a radio. And I had twenty five packs of newspapers bundled on the doorstep of the news agent. It's it's so cold your hands hurt, you think your fingers are gonna drop off. And you put the radio on the glow coming from that radio, from the songs, from the the disc jockeys voice, is is so heartwarming.

Presenter10:55

Record number three.

Chris Evans10:57

Uh record number three is Madness, It Must Be Love. There was a girl called Tina Yardley, who was the my first proper girlfriend, who was and I'm sure still is beautiful. And um there was another girl in our class called Julia and Julia was going to go on Piccadilly radio that night on a thing called School in College Rock and she was allowed to play some records and I begged her to play It Must Be Love for Tina and I and she did.

Speaker 411:21

As soon as I wake up, every night

Speaker 411:25

Every day.

Speaker 411:28

I know that it's you only To type the blues away

Speaker 411:34

It must be love, love, love.

Speaker 411:38

It must be love, love, love.

Speaker 411:44

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing

Presenter11:49

Madness and it must be love. So, spool on, Chris, it's 1983. You're 17, you've just passed your driving test, and your idol was a guy called Timmy Mallett, a DJ on Piccadilly Radio in Manchester. You and thousands of other kids, I suspect, in the North West. But you got to meet him and you got a job out of him. How did you do that?

Chris Evans12:09

Well, I just passed my driving test, as you say. My mum bought me a car, which was very sweet of her. And Timmy Mannock was doing a road show, and um he was just awesome.

Chris Evans12:18

And after the show finished I followed him home. Terrible.

Presenter12:21

He was still

Chris Evans12:22

Yep. Uh but I got a puncture, which I'd never had before'cause I'd never had a car before and I didn't know how to fix it. So I just thought, Well, I'll go and see if I'll just see the building. So I went to see the building. It was pathetic Sunday afternoon. And as I was outside looking at the building, just staring at it agog.

Chris Evans12:37

Timmy walked out'cause he'd been to drop his records off.

Presenter12:40

This was fate.

Chris Evans12:40

Yeah, and I accosted him and I said, Excuse me, but I work for Hospital Radio. Can I interview you? And he said, Yeah, yeah, come tomorrow night before the show, 15 minutes ago. Did you work for Hospital Radio? No, of course not. And so I did. And when I was there, this mad kid came in and he stormed in and stormed out again like a whirlwind. I said, Who's that? He said, No, that's my assistant, Andy, but he leaves tomorrow. I can't talk to him. He's going back to university. I'm not happy with him tonight.

Presenter12:49

Did you work for hospital rain?

Chris Evans13:04

So, um I let that go and then got home and wrote a letter to Tony Ingham, the pregnant controller, saying, Look,

Presenter13:09

So you didn't let it go, you let it go there.

Chris Evans13:10

Yeah, let's go there. And um and wrote to Tony Ingham the next day and said uh uh dear Mr Ingham, I will do anything for nothing. I understand Timmy's assistant is leaving. So the next night, the Wednesday, I was in answering the phones on the show. You got a job for nothing, no pay. Oh god, I didn't get paid for three and a half years, but it didn't matter'cause I you can't buy that kind of experience.

Presenter13:21

So

Presenter13:29

Right.

Presenter13:31

But you've said that you learned ninety percent of what you went on to use yourself on the radio from Timmy Mallett, is that right?

Chris Evans13:38

Yeah, I was at the foundation of it, definitely.

Presenter13:39

How would you characterize it? What do you think you learned?

Chris Evans13:41

Perfection, um attention to detail, thoroughness, the fact that everything can be done.

Chris Evans13:48

And we don't have a say no.

Presenter13:50

And you have to have original ideas. That's what it's really all about in your trade, isn't it?

Chris Evans13:54

I think so. Yeah, I mean that was what Timmy was very good at. Um but that's about about n being fearless.

Presenter14:01

But, you know, I'm thinking about on TFI Friday, for example, you had Peter O'Toole reading the Spice Girl lyrics, didn't you? And you had Nasser Hussein batting mini television sets into the Thames. I mean

Chris Evans14:06

Did you

Presenter14:12

These are the fruits of the Evans' imagination, honey.

Chris Evans14:14

I'd like to claim the O Two one, but that was Danny Baker's idea. Um but you know, all similar, similar kind of things. I think if you do something that's weird, it's already interesting, which is half the battle. So that if it's not funny, it's still interesting. If it's funny as well, it's even better.

Presenter14:18

Yeah.

Presenter14:25

So

Presenter14:29

You can always put another record on.

Chris Evans14:31

And that's the greatest thing about being on the radio.

Presenter14:31

Greatest thing about being on the radio.

Presenter14:33

Where's that next record?

Chris Evans14:35

Um The Beatles here, there and everywhere, the most beautiful song I've ever heard. And I think that the reason the Beatles get get us and move us to tears is because of the the tunes. The tunes are just devastating.

Speaker 414:52

Making each day of the year

Speaker 414:58

Changing my life with the wave of turn

Speaker 415:03

Nobody can.

Speaker 415:06

I that the sun

Presenter15:11

The Beatles and here, there and everywhere, taking us all back to nineteen sixty six. Um you got your own programme eventually, Chris Evans, on Piccadilly Radio in Manchester, albeit the graveyard shift. Um and then guess what, you walked out. I make that number three, but there might be others I didn't know about. Anyway.

Speaker 415:26

I think about right.

Presenter15:28

You came to London, uh you eventually got a slot on GLR and then you were picked up by Michael Grade at Channel Four and the big breakfast I mean, you were launched really, weren't you? That was that was the making of you, wasn't it?

Chris Evans15:41

I had an audition for the Big Breakfast and I went away for a couple of days, or a couple of weeks. When I came back I had an answerphone and there were forty seven messages on my answerphone. And I thought what the heck's going on here? And it was everybody saying you've got the job on the Big Breakfast and The Big Breakfast has got the gig on Channel Four. And uh that's how I found out and three of the messages off were off Bob Geldof, which was was just amazing.

Presenter16:05

Because it was Planet Twenty Four, his company, that was going to make it.

Chris Evans16:07

Yeah, him Charlie Parsons and Wahidali, Lord Wahidali.

Presenter16:10

Did you know in that min did you think this is it now? I'm in. I'm really going to make it now.

Chris Evans16:15

No, never never thought that for a second.

Presenter16:18

We're terrified.

Chris Evans16:19

No, just very excited. The Friday before the first Monday of the Big Breakfast, Channel Four Daily was wrapping up. And I remember Dermot Moynihan at one minute to nine on the Friday said, Well the final look at the headlines, at which point he picked up the headlines and showed them to the camera, threw them away. He said good luck to everybody at the Big Breakfast. And I thought it was so sweet and so magnanimous. Then we picked up on the Monday and I think the first day we got 460,000 views and by the end of the week we we were up to three quarters of a million and it was an instant smash hit.

Presenter16:49

It was

Presenter16:50

It was you and Gabby Roslyn and after that of course came Don't Forget Your Toothbrush and then TFI Friday and so on. And of course Radio One breakfast show you you eventually came back to. But all of them very much based on you. You at the centre of it. You before, during and after, you in control. I mean is that how it felt? Because you had to give so much, you had to be in control.

Chris Evans17:15

Yeah, I mean it was a ringmaster job. I was the ringmaster of a circus and also I was the producer and one of the writers. And you needed somebody on shows like that that were live, that could make decisions because we didn't have time to get a message from an editor to a director through an earpiece to a presenter who would then hear it and try and figure out what they wanted him to do. I was a control freak. I was totally in control of the programme. But because i I was the only person who knew what I wanted out of the programme. It's not a defence, it's just a a fact.

Presenter17:47

Mm.

Presenter17:49

No, no, I mean if you're the producer as well, but uh I mean the result was of course you got yourself a bit of a reputation for being a bit of a bully.

Chris Evans17:56

Without question, yeah. I was definitely a bully. I was outrageously horrible to quite a lot of people. But it's because I was so frustr frustrated, you know. I just couldn't understand why they couldn't understand.

Presenter18:07

But you're presumably also looking for the edge, right? Because you're always pushing to to to to be funny, to keep the ball in the air, the plate spinning on the stick, as it were. So you start just pushing it too far and you humiliated a few of these sidekicks on air, didn't you?

Chris Evans18:21

Yeah, I don't think I I don't I personally don't think I ever did that. I think I humiliated people off the air. Um there's some famous stories about um dragging people onto the onto the radio and saying, you know, what's all this about, what's all that about? But I actually thought those were entertainment entertainment pieces. That that was not for s

Presenter18:37

Sing a girl to say she'd been to bed with you.

Chris Evans18:38

Well, I was going out at the time and that was well known by the audience. And um we all said we'd keep it hush hush, but it became patently obvious from aside from the rest of the group on the air. So I went for it one morning and then yesterday.

Presenter18:52

Did you warn her you were gonna

Chris Evans18:53

No, of course not.

Presenter18:54

Was she humiliated?

Chris Evans18:55

But I I don't know. I don't think she was humiliated in such a way that was a bad thing, but I think she was embarrassed, yeah. But she wasn't a girl that I I sort of prized from nowhere and said, On the eight, you know, I've slept with you, haven't I? This was somebody who co-hosted the show, but I think that it's I wouldn't do it now, so yes, it was wrong.

Presenter19:15

Did she go to bed with you again after that?

Presenter19:19

Oh well that was all right then. Echo number five.

Chris Evans19:22

It's on the floor, but I guess I'm not sure.

Presenter19:23

Yeah.

Chris Evans19:25

Okay, record number five is You Two and Stuck in the Moment. It's a beautiful song and I remember I was on a ferry from Long Island going over to Bridgeport and I had it on and I was on the back of the boat and the sun was shining and life was sweet.

Speaker 419:39

I'm afraid.

Speaker 419:41

Of anything in this world.

Speaker 419:44

There's nothing you can throw at me.

Speaker 419:47

That I haven't already heard

Speaker 419:51

I'm just trying to find

Speaker 419:53

A decent melody.

Speaker 419:56

A song that I can sing

Speaker 419:59

My own company

Speaker 420:03

I'm not sure.

Presenter20:03

Who's on you as fuel?

Presenter20:08

You too, and stuck in a moment, you've calmed out. So you were the man, as I said, Chris, who worked the magic, turned the viewing figures around on breakfast television at Channel Four, and then you did it again at Radio One in nineteen ninety five, and then

Presenter20:23

Two years later, you walked out of Radio One. We won't go into the whys and wherefores, it's too complicated. But why do you think this is a a recurring theme in your life?

Chris Evans20:33

Well, I hope it's now in the past, um, which is one of the reasons I took five years off. It's because I was always getting to points with authority and where I thought I'd done enough for them to trust me, to let me carry on doing what I was doing. But I realized that

Chris Evans20:49

In order to keep surprising, you have to go deeper and deeper down a road, and sometimes that might be the wrong road. And so they have to put a stop to it at some point. At the bottom of it, honestly, I all suspected that I was going to get fired.

Presenter21:02

So it's a kind of insecurity.

Chris Evans21:03

It's total insecurity, yeah. And I always jumped before, you know, I was pushed. Um, I probably wouldn't have got pushed, but I just didn't want I didn't want anybody to be able to do that to me, so I took the opportunity away from them. And that's all insecurity.

Presenter21:15

Except it's also the way you are. I mean, you although you're sounding very laid back today, you've you've obviously sort of spent this five years thinking about all of this and analysing yourself, hammer.

Chris Evans21:20

Yeah.

Chris Evans21:25

Yeah, definitely.

Presenter21:25

Yeah, definitely. Have you d had it done professionally at all? Or you?

Chris Evans21:28

No, I've I mean I've read a load of great books. Um but it's all about I mean I s know it sounds quite hippish, but it's just about looking at flowers and looking at, you know, the the complexity of a rose or or or the the number of flies you can see in the haze of the sun in a wood, the number of things in the air and just realizing that your place in the world is definitely justified, but it's just a very small place.

Presenter21:54

Mm.

Presenter21:55

That's quite moving.

Chris Evans21:56

Ha ha

Speaker 421:58

It's

Chris Evans21:58

Uh

Presenter21:59

Well perhaps you were always trying to get to that place. When when you fell out with Radio One it was'cause you wanted to do less, you wanted to do four days a week, wasn't it? You know. M maybe you were always trying to sort of cool it, pull back.

Chris Evans22:10

Yeah, th n that that was I was doing Friday mornings on the radio, not very well because I was conserving energy for Friday nights on the T V. So I wasn't giving all m my oil on Friday mornings. But because I'd give some of my oil on Friday mornings, I didn't di then didn't have the capacity to do

Speaker 222:18

Okay.

Chris Evans22:26

Brilliantly on the on the T V

Presenter22:27

But you obviously still had some steam,'cause it was after that that you went to Virgin and ended up b buying the shop, as it were, and making a a tremendous amount of money out of it. So you were still spotting, you know, you were still the entrepreneur, weren't you?

Chris Evans22:40

Yeah, I mean, I I only I honestly only bought Virgin Radio so I could get back on the radio. I didn't buy it for a financial, you know, advantage. You know, mu money has always been in i in in my life. And, um

Chris Evans22:53

It's always been a huge part of my life. But I've never been scared of not having any. I'm just fascinated about how much you can get.

Presenter22:59

And you got a lot out of that. Yeah. You got, what, seventy-five million?

Chris Evans23:04

Uh the day on the day it was eighty three million. It's not at all any more because um things situations have changed and share prices and things.

Presenter23:10

But you've got some hard cash up front. Many, many millions.

Chris Evans23:12

I got many

Chris Evans23:13

Yeah, yeah, I got quite a few quid.

Presenter23:15

How did that feel?

Chris Evans23:17

Woke up the next day, forty five million pounds in the bank. It was just it was extraordinary and and unbelievable, and still is, to be honest.

Presenter23:22

I'm gonna

Presenter23:26

How much is left?

Chris Evans23:28

Uh about half that.

Presenter23:30

Oh, that's all right, Lynn. Oh, no, we're we're fine.

Chris Evans23:33

You know, we have the rainy day money.

Presenter23:34

Who's we?

Chris Evans23:35

Maybe mum.

Presenter23:37

Like on number six.

Chris Evans23:38

Okay. Record number six on the subject of money is the Andrew Sisters and the Money Song. I think it says everything good and bad about this silly thing in our lives called money.

Speaker 423:48

If you got it.

Speaker 423:50

You don't need it if you need it.

Speaker 423:53

You don't got it.

Speaker 423:55

You don't get it, shame on you Funny, funny, funny, what money can do Then that happened?

Speaker 424:03

Yet more of it too.

Speaker 424:05

Less they need it.

Speaker 424:07

More they love it.

Speaker 424:08

And it sticks to them like blue.

Speaker 424:12

Bunny Bunny Bunny What Money Can Do

Presenter24:16

The Andrew Sisters and the Money song. Despite your money in the bank, Chris, you finally lost confidence, I think for the last time, at at Virgin Radio. Again, you seemed to feel that they didn't have confidence in you. Why did you feel that? What made you suddenly want to run?

Chris Evans24:34

I think out of all the times that I did run, this was the one time that I may I may have been right. And I was I may have been wrong before, every time, but I wasn't gonna be wrong this time.

Presenter24:42

What made you think you were right, Besta?

Chris Evans24:45

I went to make a cup of coffee during a programme one day and um in the coffee bar just behind the coffee pots a book had fallen off the shelf and it was a notebook from a meeting of the managers of the station and there were sentences like get rid of Chris, replace Chris da da da and I I was like what? you know and these are people I used to employ and that was a bit of a shocker.

Presenter25:07

And that's when you ran, really, and ran to Las Vegas ultimately and married Billy Piper and set out on the Big Bowl trip.

Chris Evans25:14

That was the beginning of it.

Presenter25:15

That was it.

Chris Evans25:16

Yeah.

Presenter25:16

Of course you were caught in the tabloid trap, even if you say y y y you know, you don't take any any notice of them, and I understand that, but y you know, you were labelled and therefore the public believed that you were a kind of

Presenter25:28

egocentric bully boy who'd got his comeuppance, really.

Chris Evans25:32

Without doubt.

Chris Evans25:34

Yeah.

Presenter25:34

Well, how did that feel?

Chris Evans25:36

It's something that if you look at what I did and how I lived, they have to go down that route. That has to be the story that they're going to tell.

Presenter25:44

But did you do you think you had a a breakdown? I mean

Chris Evans25:47

Yeah, I think I think I had a breakdown. Yeah, I definitely had a breakdown.

Presenter25:49

Yeah, well I def

Chris Evans25:52

Yeah, I would say so.

Presenter25:53

But you put it together yourself after that. I mean, you sorted yourself out, you say.

Chris Evans25:58

Yeah. Yeah, I had a I had a moment of honesty with myself, which effectively I suppose may have been a breakdown. And, um, I thought, Right, we've got to do something about this. We don't sink, we we all swim. What are we going to do? And for once I stopped and and didn't do anything, which is exactly what I needed to do.

Presenter26:04

Mm.

Presenter26:15

Mm. Stop stop drinking?

Chris Evans26:15

Uh

Chris Evans26:17

No. You only haven't stopped drinking. No, I like I like I like a beer. I had a beer last night and it was lovely.

Presenter26:18

Yeah, you haven't stopped drinking.

Presenter26:21

Uh

Presenter26:22

But did did you sort of analyse that there obviously from everything from the story you've described here today is you know, there's been a kind of self destruct button always at the ready and your hand's always quite near it, isn't it? And whether it's in your personal life or your professional life, you know, you can just suddenly push it. It's as if you

Presenter26:40

I think somebody has said in your life, you know, you can acquire things, but then the minute you've got them, you you kind of destroy them.

Chris Evans26:47

Yeah, I mean there's a technical term for it, it's called the paradise syndrome and it's um it's not something something I necessarily concur with, but it it's quite interesting. And it's the fact that a lot of people have um get depressed after huge success. I think Freud said it, ninety percent of people have breakdowns after success, it's not failures. Nobody teaches you how to go from from from nothing to having fifty million quid in the bank. I'm getting better at it, that's all I can say.

Chris Evans27:13

Record number seven. Van Morrison is record number seven and this is a song called The Philosopher's Stone and I think that it's as much about him as about maybe the mythical philosopher he's talking about because at one point he says my job is turning lead into gold and I think that we think what he does is easy and every time he thinks of a song it's another piece of lead and he's got to turn it into gold.

Speaker 427:38

Yeah I'm searching for

Speaker 427:40

And I'm searching for the philosopher's stone.

Speaker 427:48

In Lisa High Road.

Speaker 427:51

It's a hard world

Speaker 427:54

Very old

Speaker 427:59

When my job is turning lit

Speaker 428:04

Into

Presenter28:04

Go.

Speaker 428:05

Uh

Presenter28:07

Van Morrison and Philosopher's Stone. Um it's been exhausting listening to your life, really.

Chris Evans28:13

Sorry about that. Should have lived it.

Presenter28:14

Lift it. You're thirty-nine and three-quarters and you're on Radio Two now, sign of the Times. Hair's not as ginger.

Speaker 228:22

No.

Presenter28:23

I heard you say on Radio Two the other day that that scientists have now got proof that that hair goes white or grey wi wi with torrid years that you have lived. That's obviously what's happened to yours, isn't it?

Chris Evans28:35

Yeah, but at least it's still there. I mean, t two years ago I thought I was going bald and I went to see a trichologist on Harley Street. And uh I mean, you know, I don't think I'm a vain person, but I really don't know what I'd do if I went bald. I'cause I don't think I'd make a good bald looking man. I anyway, apparently I'm not, so that's

Presenter28:52

There's a vanity under there somewhere.

Chris Evans28:53

Oh, of course, yeah, there's definitely a vanity under there.

Presenter28:55

But have you still got the same energy? You're a different person, I mean, patently, from everything you've been talking about this morning. Has this always been the real you? Have we not really met the real you on air before?

Chris Evans29:05

I don't think people think about who the real them is.

Chris Evans29:09

You know, I don't think he's a real Meese.

Presenter29:10

Yes, you do. You've obviously spent the last five years trying to find out and you've decided, and here you are.

Chris Evans29:15

No, but you know the question isn't who is the real me? Because that's too much of a cookie kind of question. It's just it's just about, you know, why do I feel like this? How can I make myself feel better? And I think that that I'm at that point now where, you know, if things go wrong on the radio or on the television, it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. As long as we put the work in beforehand and things go wrong, we couldn't have done any more. I'm on the radio, I'm on the television, that's what I do. And hopefully make things a little bit more interesting and a little bit more entertaining and make your journey seem a little less long. That's it. I'm not, you know, Leonardo da Vinci and I'm not a great composer and I'm not Steven Spielberg.

Chris Evans29:55

This is what I do.

Presenter29:56

Your Mr. Sunny Demeanor, just like Ernie on Sesame Street, huh?

Chris Evans29:59

Ernie on Chesame Street.

Presenter30:02

You are a little bit more.

Chris Evans30:02

But I don't know who but I don't know where Bert is.

Chris Evans30:05

That's the problem.

Presenter30:06

As long as he's not here, we're alright. Last record.

Chris Evans30:09

Okay, this is um Queen and we are the champions. Queen, without question, I think the best live band, best performing band the world's ever seen. If you see the song on video from the 1985 Queen concert at Wembley, there's a line in the song and he says um you've given me fame and fortune and everything and I thank you all. And then he looks at the audience and he gives them a wink and they sit there.

Chris Evans30:38

They suddenly realise he's talking to them, and say

Presenter30:42

Why does that upset you so much?

Chris Evans30:45

Because it's such a big deal.

Speaker 430:47

I've taken my bout

Speaker 430:50

My guttung calls.

Speaker 430:55

You brought me fame and fortune and everything that goes with it.

Speaker 430:59

Thank you all.

Speaker 431:02

But it's been no better frozen

Speaker 431:06

No pleasure cruel

Speaker 431:09

I consider it a challenge to befall the whole human race And I'm gonna lose

Presenter31:17

Queen and we are the champions. Okay, Chris, if you could let me take one of those eight records, which one would you take?

Chris Evans31:22

Goodness me, I think it would have to be the Beatles here, there and everywhere just because, you know, if the weather was nice, and I presume we'd be in a nice part of the world, I could close my eyes and that would break your heart.

Presenter31:33

Break your heart.

Chris Evans31:34

No, I don't think it would break my heart on the island. I think it would be different. I think it breaks my heart here. You know, that would be my companion and that tune as a companion would be as good as anything, I think.

Presenter31:45

What about your book?

Chris Evans31:46

The one I've gone for is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens,'cause I love Christmas. I'd wa what I'd do is I'd be on the island and I'd wait until I felt at my happiest, and I'd say, Right, because this is the happiest I've been since I've been here, today is Christmas Day and then I'd wait for three hundred and sixty five days and every year that would be Christmas Day.

Presenter32:03

And a luxury.

Chris Evans32:05

I didn't really care about taking anything, to be honest, but I thought that what what might be useful would be a pair of swimming goggles with prescription lenses in, because then I could it would be terrible to have a beautiful sea and not be able to see it properly, because it'd be all blurred. That's why I take the goggles, but also because if they were prescription and I ever lost my glasses, I could wear them instead.

Chris Evans32:27

I presume you're allowed your glasses anyway.

Presenter32:30

You are. Chris Evans, thank you very much indeed for letting me see your desert island discs.

Chris Evans32:34

You're very welcome, and it was very enjoyable.

Speaker 232:44

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.