'It was a sliding doors moment': Sara Cox reveals the incident that completely changed her career path
As she prepares to host the Radio 2 Breakfast Show, the DJ shares the moment that altered her career trajectory
Sara Cox is preparing to take on one of the biggest jobs in radio, as she takes over hosting the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show from former presenter Scott Mills on July 6.
However, Sara has revealed she might not be where she is now, if it weren't for a "sliding doors" moment in her life that completely altered her career path.
In the run up to leaving her current slot at Radio 2 presenting the drive-time show, Sara appeared on the station's Tracks of My Years with Vernon Kay.
In between sharing the ten tracks that have defined her life, Sara offered anecdotes about her life, including one particularly interesting story about how being sent home from a modelling job got her into television and brought her to where she is now.
After being scouted while living in France at the age of 18 by a man she thought could "shove me in a van and murder me," Sara successfully began her modelling career when the man turned out to be a genuine talent finder.
Although this "life changing" time in her life took her to Milan, New York and South Korea, the presenter was eventually sent home early from a modelling job for "bad behaviour."
"I'd put on a bit of timber," she explains, telling Vernon that missing home meant she "ate fried rice and hard boiled eggs non stop," and the changes to her body shape sadly meant she was no longer deemed suitable for the job she was on.
For Sara however, being sent home was actually life-changing. "It was a sliding doors moment," she says, adding, "I would've missed The Girlie Show casting" if she hadn't been back in the UK. This was the late 90s hit show that launched her broadcasting career and everything that's followed.
Landing her role on The Girlie Show was not only a pivotal moment, but one Sara looks back on with some very fond memories.
"It was a really ace time of just being in a flat in London, doing The Girlie Show, I had a couple of quid in my pocket, I had no responsibilities - it was just an ace time," she shares.
The presenter says she "didn't have a clue" how important auditioning for the show would be for her career. She reiterates again, "Isn't it weird, those sliding door moments?"
When asked if she fully understood everything that would come with being young and on a popular TV show, Sara has another amusing response, full of nostalgia for a time gone by.
"The beauty and also the hazard of being 21 and thrust onto a TV show, is you're fearless," she recalls, adding, "You don't over think things - there's no social media for a start."
If the public didn't like somebody on the TV at the time the show was airing in the 90s, Sara rightly says, "they'd have to try pretty hard to let you know," unlike today where strangers can instantly access celebrities on social media and immediately and directly let them know their opinion of them.
Weighing in on the so-called "ladette" culture of the era, Sara has an explanation for why women were given this label.
"The press, and mainly men, didn't know how to label these women who were going out and having a good time, so they just extended the word 'lad' in to 'ladette,' and actually what it was about was young women having no shame attached to having a good time," she says.
Sara also recalls that as a result of the "ladette" label, she was branded a "party girl" and somebody who "lacked depth," subsequently spending "a decade" having to prove TV and radio executives wrong.
She believes that hosting The Great Pottery Throwdown finally allowed her to shake off the "party girl" image for good. "It was real family friendly TV" she says, believing it was what allowed her to "find a home at Radio 2" and now prepare to host one of the most important jobs there is at the station.
