Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I want to have long lie-ins, to start looking younger & to find Mr Right
Nick Grimshaw fantasised about being Radio 1’s Breakfast DJ as a child. Now his dream gig is coming to an end as, today, he leaves the slot after six years in the most highprofile job on the airwaves, interviewing everyone from Taylor Swift to Stormzy.
But Grimmy, as he is known to his millions of fans, is far from disappointed about being moved to the Drivetime 4pm to 7pm slot, which he announced on air at the end of May.
In fact, he admits the second longest ever stint in the R1 breakfast job has damaged his personal life and aged him.
After his final show this morning, he hopes to throw away the alarm clock find love, make more TV programmes and have no more dinner parties at “Nana O’clock” as he describes it.
“My alarm goes off at ten-to-five each morning and, since the announcement I was leaving, I am like ‘f***ing hell this is well early’,” he says with a grin.
“It’s been harder to wake up than ever. But it has been really fun, I’ve loved it and it’s been good for my brain and myself, just not great for my personal life.
“It does send you a bit mad and sort of becomes your life, because everything you are watching and consuming each day you are trying to produce content for the next morning, because you can’t do it before 5am.”
In terms of how his life will change, Grimmy, 33, has already told 5.8 million listeners he intends to stay in bed four or five hours later each morning.
Sitting down with the Mirror in a North London cafe, he says: “I am really hoping the change is going to massively de-age me.
“I recently saw Fiona [producer Fiona Hanlon] who used to work with me and said, ‘have you had Botox? You f***ing
have’ and she said ‘I have not, it is just going to sleep I swear to God’. I was feeling and prodding her face, but it was just sleep. I am looking forward to waking up like a normal person.
“The breakfast show was the only thing I set out to do in life which I have completed. Six years has got a nice ring to it and it is long enough.
“I don’t know if I will cry on air on the last show, I might do. It has been such a big part of my life and I have loved it so much.
“I think if I was leaving the station, I would feel more emotional, but getting to do it every day with a new afternoon show, it is a weird feeling.
“I can’t wait to be able to walk the dogs, being able to not have breakfast stood up, it has been quite stressful.”
Grimmy is also hopeful the change to his life may bring better luck in the love department. Short-term relationships have come and gone, but he is yet to find someone to “couple-up” with. And asked if he thinks changing jobs will help his search for Mr Right, he sips his green tea and says: “Yes. I think I will have more time to put my life first.
“I have committed to this show, especially the last year, and I have put my head down. But now I can go for dates with people and the new show will help.
“I have been trying to date people, but you don’t want to ‘day date’ and even two weeks ago, I went on a date and then he said, ‘do you want to go to the cinema, it’s at 8.20pm?’.
“And I was thinking, ‘8.20, arrggh the film won’t start until ten-to-nine so it won’t finish before 11’ so home and asleep at midnight and that is if I fall asleep straight away.”
He is in no rush to sign up to more dating apps, though, after his most recent experience.
“My friend made me go on Bumble and I hated it. The deal is you have to reply within 24 hours or it deletes the match.
“But if you go to work and forget, then they are deleted. I didn’t like it. I was swiping no to 100 people to one yes.
“Then it makes you feel weirdly superficial, like ‘don’t like his ears, his hair is bad’. I’m looking forward to going out for dinner not at Nana O’clock and going to gigs and seeing music again.” Grimmy’s move to Drivetime also means he has a less high-profile slot and more regular hours, which means he is more likely to be able to work on other projects.
He says he would like to make more TV and was not put off by criticism that came with a one-year stint on The X Factor in 2015.
In fact, he praises this year’s line-up as “exciting” and says Simon Cowell is “a panto villain and the best at reality TV”, before reflecting on his own experience on the show.
You need to find something on TV that you are comfortable in, so it could be working with a friend on a subject you love. X Factor didn’t put me off, but it taught me lessons.
“I think the difference between X Factor and radio is you are much more in control of radio and something like X Factor is so much bigger than you and you can’t choose stuff freely.” Whatever he chooses to do next, on TV and elsewhere it won’t be a money-orientated decision.
Grimmy was named in the last BBC pay list as taking home £400,000£409,999, and he says: “I think I am really lucky to earn money for something that I like doing. I don’t really use the word lucky, but it is the one thing in my life I would apply it to.
“You get paid well to talk and have fun. I feel really lucky people in my position and DJS earn money for it.
“This does feel like the end of a chapter, but also, looking back, there is nothing I would do differently. I definitely think I have matured and got more comfortable in my own skin and I am excited about the future.”
Grimmy’s last Radio 1 Breakfast Show is today. He will present a new drivetime show from September 3.
The breakfast show was the only thing I set out to do in life which I completed NICK GRIMSHAW ON COMING TO END OF MORNING STINT