Vernon Kay was left in fits of laughter after an on-air blunder during his BBC Radio 2 show on Thursday morning. The 52-year-old presenter, who hosts a weekday morning show alongside Janine Maya-Smith, Phil McGarvey, and Ellie Brennan, was speaking to Ellie when the mishap occurred.
Team tribute takes an unexpected turn
During the show, Vernon paid tribute to his team, saying: “That’s how tight we are as a team. We have the confidence to communicate in such a manner with each other.” He added: “Some people said that this show is just organic because we don’t have a script and it really is. It’s audio manure, that’s what we are. We flourish we fertilise. We just come up with ideas. We’re so organic.”
After that comment, Vernon and his team fell into laughter, prompting him to quip and try to move on. He said: “I think someone spiked the air conditioning. Here’s Noel Gallagher with all the details that you need to come [silence] the top.”
Joking about the 'rules of radio'
The sudden silence raised alarms with Ellie, whom Vernon referred to as Brennan, who asked jokingly: “Did you just put the microphone down mid talking?” Vernon, realising his blunder, rebutted light-heartedly: “Why would you do that? Rule number one in radio. Rule number one in radio alright. Brennan you’ve been in radio a while, you should know this one. Whenever there’s a blip, ok, blame it on someone going through a tunnel.”
Ellie joked back: “Oh is that what you were hoping for?” Vernon responded: “Always! Always! DAB is good, but it’s not that good!”
Previous slip-ups on the show
This isn’t the first slip-up on Vernon’s BBC Radio 2 show, which he has presented since 2023. Earlier this year, in August, his colleague, traffic reporter Jules Lang, struggled to pronounce a word at the end of her travel report. As she announced she was “done,” Vernon leapt in to fill the silence before Jules said: “That’s unlike me.”
Letting Jules know it was all OK, Vernon replied: “It's not unlike this show.” Jules quickly said: “It's the beast....That'll be it...[laughing]...I'm done.” As the moment continued, Vernon double-checked: “You're finished? Given up?” Jules confirmed, informally responding: “That's it. I've had enough.”
Vernon then said he light-heartedly considered giving up himself and letting BBC colleague Jeremy Vine come in earlier than expected, adding: “I like you Jules, I like you. Imagine if we did that, P Mac...let's just leave it, let's get [Jeremy] Vine in early.”
