- Born
- Birth nameAlexander Matthew Wright
- Nickname
- Shirley
- Height6′ (1.83 m)
- Matthew Wright went to Catholic school. He was not good at school sports, so his mother encouraged him to go to the Croydon Youth Theatre. He developed a deep and abiding love of Hawkwind when a school friend played him their 1977 compilation album "Masters of the Universe". At the age of 14 he appeared in Big Wheels and Sailor (1979) for the Children's Film Foundation.
Wright studied English and Drama at the University of Exeter. As a student, Wright was involved in left-wing politics and joined campaigns against nuclear weapons, apartheid in South Africa and serving prime minister Margaret Thatcher. In 1984, he attended the Stonehenge Free Festival and saw his favourite bands Hawkwind and Here and Now, an event he later said "changed my life".
As a former child actor who graduated with a drama degree, Wright wanted to work in television, but he couldn't find a job there and became a journalist instead. Wright first gained fame on the Bizarre page of the UK's most popular tabloid, The Sun, and later achieved a showbusiness column in The Daily Mirror. He famously wrote a scathing review of a play starring David Soul which he had never actually seen, resulting in a successful libel action by Soul.
In 2000, Wright was chosen to front a series for Channel 5, The Wright Stuff (2000), which included newspaper reviews and topical discussions. The series became a long-running success for Channel 5 in the mornings and Wright has proved a popular but controversial figure for the channel. In 2002, he made news for all the wrong reasons when he accidentally named John Leslie on air as the man being linked to the alleged rape of Ulrika Jonsson. 2011 was a particularly bad year for Wright. The Wright Stuff (2000) attracted the most Ofcom complaints of the year after Wright made a joke about a murdered Scottish teenager. He also made an apology the day after provoking a Twitter storm by asking viewers if they would have sex with the attractive American student Amanda Knox following her successful appeal against her murder conviction.
Wright remains left-leaning in his political convictions. He often uses his series to criticize corporate tax avoidance and advocate socialist redistribution of wealth through the tax system. He is also a staunch adherent of political correctness on issues such as race, feminism and gay rights.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous
- SpousesAmelia Wright(2010 - present)Jane (divorced)
- Introducing his guests as "the fabulous"
- When he laughs, he has a tendency to stick his tongue through his teeth
- He usually starts discussions with saying "so"
- He is a former journalist with tabloid newspapers The Sun and the Daily Mirror.
- He once sang with space rock band Hawkwind at London's Astoria.
- He is a fan of psychedelic, progressive/art rock music. He is a fan of Gong and Here & Now (he claims that seeing Here & Now in concert in 2010 was one of the best shows he has been to). He described Peter Gabriel as a "god-like musical genius" in the Mirror in 1999. He went to see King Crimson in concert in Aylesbury in 2016.
- He is a big fan of Frank Zappa, Sparklehorse, Grateful Dead and Giant Sand, in particular the Led Zeppelin songs "Going to California" and "The Battle of Evermore". He has also admitted to being a big fan of Haircut 100, once stating they "provided the soundtrack for the '80s, certainly for me". He is such a big fan of The Cure that he went to see them twice in one week in 2016, at Manchester Arena and Wembley Arena. He is also a big fan of George Ezra.
- He used to regularly sit in for other presenters on BBC Radio 2, which led to his being given his own regular show on the channel, The Weekender, which is broadcast on a Friday night between 22:00 and 00:00.
- I'm not a socialist. I hate all politicians equally.
- Should Charles (King Charles III) ever be allowed to perch on the throne as king? The guy is to PR what The Cheeky Girls are to pop music - a bad joke in my view.
- I'm not interested in the Civil Service at all, they can all go.
- Jude Law, while a marvellous and talented actor, is frankly too wimpy to cut it as 007.
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