Girl power: Sara, Zoe and Jo are hot tips to take over Radio 2 show
SARA COX has been tipped as the favourite to replace Chris Evans on the Radio 2 Breakfast Show.
Odds for Cox, 43, were slashed to 2-to-1 yesterday.
The former ‘ladette’, who has reinvented herself in recent years and is regarded as a top talent at the BBC, received widespread backing on social media.
Fuelling rumours further, she posted on Twitter: ‘Shucks. You lot, honestly. Whatever happens, today on Twitter has felt like one massive hug. Thank you.’
Cox joined the BBC in 1999 and currently presents a 10pm to midnight Radio 2 show during the week. If picked, she would be the first woman to host the flagship morning programme full-time since the station launched in 19 7.
Contrary to the posh Oxbridge image that some associate with the Corporation, Bolton-born Cox left school with four A-levels for a career in modelling and moved into TV aged 19 after being spotted by scouts.
But her career has not been without its controversies.
On Radio 1’s Breakfast Show, she told of how she had lost her virginity in a field at the age of 15, and was once sent home from a modelling shoot drunk. Cox has since admitted she’s come a long way since the wild days of her youth, telling the Mail: ‘Ladette is a word that makes my toes curl now.’
A married mother-of-three, she has already covered for Evans on occasion. And following the gender pay crisis that has engulfed the BBC, many believe the coveted position should go to a woman.
Several other female stars are in the mix with odds of
-to-1 on Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball. Claudia Winkleman is the outsider at 12-to-1. Whiley’s Radio 2 co-host Simon Mayo is the top man tipped for the job with odds of 4-to-1.