Matthew Wright
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| Matthew Wright | |
|---|---|
| Born | Alexander Matthew Wright 8 July 1965 Croydon, Surrey, England |
| Occupation | Broadcaster, journalist |
| Notable credit(s) | The Wright Stuff |
| Official website | |
Matthew Wright (born on 8 July 1965, Croydon, Surrey) is an English journalist and television presenter. Formerly a writer for The Sun and gossip columnist on Daily Mirror, he has been the host of the topical discussion series The Wright Stuff on weekdays on Channel Five since 2000.
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[edit] Early life and education
Wright started his career at 14 appearing in the Children's Film Foundation production Big Wheels And Sailor (1979).[citation needed] He was educated at the voluntary-aided Roman Catholic boys' John Fisher School in Purley, Surrey and was in the same class as the artist and sculptor Diarmuid Bryon O'Connor and DJ Gilles Peterson. Following school, Wright attended the University of Exeter, graduating in English and drama.[1]
[edit] Career
Wright became a showbusiness correspondent with The Sun and later wrote a column for the Daily Mirror in the 1990s with future 3AM girl Polly Graham as his assistant. He left the Daily Mirror in 2000 to launch the website mykindaplace.com.[2]
Since 2000, Wright has hosted the daytime chat show The Wright Stuff for Channel Five. It was on his show in 2002 that Wright inadvertently revealed that the celebrity alleged to have raped Ulrika Jonsson was John Leslie, who was ultimately not charged in connection with the allegations. Wright and Leslie later made fun of the situation in the music video for the 2003 Bo' Selecta! Christmas single.
Wright was a contributor to Phil Collins: a Life Less Ordinary, a 2002 BBC TV documentary investigating the life and career of the Genesis band member and solo musician. Until July 2008, he presented the arts and culture programme The Weekender for BBC Radio 2. He currently presents the current affairs series Inside Out London for BBC One, in addition to writing a weekly column for the Daily Star Sunday.[3]
In 2001, he wrote Martine McCutcheon's autobiography, Who Does She Think She Is?: My Autobiography.
[edit] Opinions
Wright has said of fellow TV presenter Jeremy Kyle and his eponymously-named The Jeremy Kyle Show: "I'd say our show is about the normal world while he plumbs the depths of inbred, alkie, junkie wasters with rampant sex lives."[4]
Wright has been associated with a number of political causes. He is a long-time supporter of nuclear disarmament in the United Kingdom and was involved in anti-nuclear marches in the early 1980s. He is a frequent critic of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, especially over his decision to take Britain into the Iraq War, which Wright marched against. In 2005, Wright interviewed Blair on The Wright Stuff prior to the General Election but chose not to ask Blair any difficult questions about his decision to take Britain to war. In December 2010, while presenting his show, Wright criticised Blair's property ownership, stating, "Tony Blair ended up with five houses as a result of the boom years of Labour. And when he was interviewed by Andrew Marr about the five houses, Tony offered the righteous, socialist excuse that he has to look after his children, of which I believe there are four. Four children, five houses. So it's a little bit beyond a house per child."[5] In March 2011, Wright described Blair as a "good friend" of Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi, presenting a photograph of Blair shaking Gaddafi's hand, and criticised Blair for selling guns and crowd control weapons to Gaddafi for him to use against his own people.[6]
[edit] Controversies
In 1998, in his review published in the Daily Mirror, Wright referred to the play The Dead Monkey featuring David Soul as "without doubt the worst West End show I have ever seen", despite not having seen it. Wright also made several other inaccurate claims about the play in his article. In 2001, Soul won £20,000 in a libel case against Wright and the Daily Mirror, stating that Wright was "using the play as an excuse to attack me personally".[7]
In October 2011, Wright caused a controversy when he asked male viewers of The Wright Stuff if they would have sexual intercourse with Amanda Knox, who had just been acquitted of the murder of Meredith Kercher. Wright introduced a debate on Knox's future with an on-screen caption headed "Foxy Knoxy: Would Ya?" and told viewers: "She's entirely innocent. She's also undeniably fit and loves wild sex. Or did. So if you were a guy who'd met her in a bar and she invited you back to hers, would you go?" Wright apologised for the segment the following day, stating: "While I'm not going to apologise for discussing Amanda Knox's future after all the terrible things the media has said about her these past four years, I do want to say sorry for the way I framed the debate. The on-screen title was wrong, no doubt about it. I only wish all those mouthing off about it on Twitter had seen the whole 20-minute debate and not just reacted to the 10-second introduction. But nevertheless, I am sorry."[8]
In December 2011, Wright made a joke during a discussion on his show of the murder of Scottish teenager Liam Aitchison, resulting in more than 2,000 viewer complaints and an investigation by Ofcom.[9] This edition of The Wright Stuff resulted in more complaints being made to Ofcom than any other programme in 2011.[10]Wright's subsequent on-air apology: ("'I know that some of you have been upset by some comments... and I would like to apologise if that was the case")[11]was followed by news that he had personally written to the family of the murder victim by way of further apology.[12]
[edit] Personal life
Besides cricket, Wright is a fan of live music and regularly attends concerts. The first band that he saw live was Queen at Purley, London in 1979. He regularly appears on stage with Hawkwind,[citation needed] with whom he released a single, Spirit of the Age, in 2006. He is also credited on their album Take Me To Your Leader, released the same year,[13] and often mentions the band on The Wright Stuff. Wright is also a fan of Frank Zappa, Led Zeppelin, Sparklehorse, Gong, Grateful Dead, Focus, Giant Sand, Lambchop, Will Oldham, Patti Smith, Echo & the Bunnymen, Steve Hillage, Buzzcocks, Cardiacs, Nick Cave, Budgie and Midlake. He claims that Here & Now's Fantasy Shift is the album that changed his life.[14]
In 2010, Wright married his long-term girlfriend Amelia Wright, a music executive.
[edit] References
- ^ "Matthew Wright". http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/content/articles/2007/08/14/matthew_wright_feature.shtml.
- ^ John Diamond (27 December 2000). ""And the nominations are...": John Diamond Hands out his End-of-Year Media Awards". London: Evening Standard. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-5291110.html. Retrieved 2 November 2007.
- ^ BBC Inside Out
- ^ "Matthew Wright: "I'd love to do Strictly Come Dancing"". http://www.metro.co.uk/tv/838972-matthew-wright-id-love-to-do-strictly-come-dancing.
- ^ The Wright Stuff, 1 December 2010
- ^ The Wright Stuff, 21 March 2011
- ^ "Soul "vindicated" by Libel Win". BBC. 12 December 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/showbiz/1705581.stm. Retrieved 12 December 2001.
- ^ "Matthew Wright Apologises over Amanda Knox Gaffe". http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/05/matthew-wright-amanda-knox.
- ^ "Ofcom to Investigate Wright Stuff Comment about Teenager's Murder". http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/dec/14/ofcom-complaints-wright-stuff-comment.
- ^ "Wright Stuff gets most Ofcom Complaints of 2011". http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16214617.
- ^ "TV Presenter Matthew Wright says 'sorry' to family of boy, 16, killed on Scottish island that he joked about with 'Taggart accent'". http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2076145/Matthew-Wright-says-sorry-Taggart-joke-Liam-Aitchison-murder.html.
- ^ "Liam Aitchison's family accept Matthew Wright apology". http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-16249401.
- ^ Hawkwind Museum gallery
- ^ Hall, John (11 August 2010). "My Life in Ten Questions ... Matthew Wright". The Independent (London). http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/my-life-in-ten-questions-matthew-wright-2049889.html.
