Steve Wright death – latest: BBC DJ found dead ‘by paramedics at home’ as brother breaks silence

Kevin E G Perry has paid tribute to Wright, calling him “a friend you only had to switch on your radio to summon”.

Perry writes: “In September 2022, when Steve Wright signed off from his final afternoon show on Radio 2, he did it with good humour and characteristic charm. ‘Last show,’ he said as it opened. ‘Bit of pressure. Got to make it a good one, everybody.’

“It was hard to imagine that Wright, who has died at the age of 69, was really feeling the pressure. After all, he had spent 40 years on daytime national radio, redefining the medium on BBC Radio One before moving to Radio 2 for another 23 years as the nation’s constant and beloved companion, a wild, joyful friend you only had to switch on your radio to summon.”

Read The Independent’s full tribute to the late radio icon here:

Wright’s brother, Laurence, has given an interview to the Daily Mail in which he blames his brother’s death on his diet and overall “lifestyle choices”.

“He was aware that he could have looked after himself better, in his lifestyle choices. Obviously we all wish he had,” Laurence, a director of a company in the health industry, said.

“It’s like anyone who doesn’t look after themselves over an extended period. The normal stuff – diet, nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress – he was a very stoic kind of guy as well so if he had something wrong with him and he had to go to have some treatment or go to the doctors, he wouldn’t talk about it.”

Wright was found dead by paramedics at his central London flat on Monday morning, according to reports – but police say his death is not being treated as suspicious.

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Wright’s death has left his BBC colleagues “broken”, radio presenter Jo Wiley said, as she paid tribute to “the master of his craft”.

Writer and TV presenter Adrian Chiles has written a tribute to Wright, in which he recalls a period in his life when Wright’s voice on the Afternoon show on BBC Radio 2 would lift his spirits.

“If ever I needed a cheering companion at my side, this was the time. And Steve, along with his ‘posse’, was my man. He was friendly and funny,” Chiles wrote in The Guardian.

He recalled writing a fan letter to Wright to thank him but said he had no idea whether the DJ ever received it.

“I didn’t put my address on it, mainly because I was a bit embarrassed about what I had written. I thanked him for his company from the bottom of my heart, and for putting a smile on my face every day in a trying period of my life.”

Chiles concluded that Wright “spread a great deal of happiness in his time”.

Veteran radio presenter Steve Wright had plans to “start a new BBC radio show” before his death, his friend and colleague Paul Gambaccini revealed.

Gambaccini said in an interview with This Morning: “I was due to talk to him tomorrow because of the subject of the new BBC radio stations they were producing and we were the only two people mentioned in the news release.”

BBC Radio 2 host Jo Whiley has shared a sweet anecdote about Steve Wright’s generosity that she said “sums him up”.

Whiley shared a picture of Wright standing next to the BBC Radio logo, as she recalled an occasion when the radio host went out of his way to give her sister Frances – who is a huge fan of Wright’s work – a personalised Christmas present.

“Just this Xmas I asked [Wright] to record a message for my sister Frances who is obsessed with Pick of The Pops and therefore Steve himself. He didn’t just send a message – he recorded a personalised mini package for her… jingles and all.”

Whiley added that her sister was delighted and listened to the recording “over a hundred million times during the course of Xmas day”.

Read more here:

Mike Read, who co-hosted a show called Read and Wright with the DJ on local radio before they moved to Radio 1, told BBC Breakfast on Wednesday that he was a “ringmaster” and “good at pulling people in”.

“He worked tirelessly, he was a radio man not just somebody who turned up, did the show and went home. It was in his mind, always thinking of ideas”.