'He was loathed in the office - it was all so mean': BBC insider tells DOLLY BUSBY of disturbing new allegations about Chris Moyles' treatment of junior colleagues... yet friends are STILL defending his behaviour

W hen  Chris Moyles announced he was leaving his breakfast show at the BBC in 2012 there was one phrase he kept repeating.

‘We have had the best time ever.’

But who did he mean by ‘we’? Having hailed himself as the ‘Saviour of Radio 1’, he no doubt imagined he was speaking for a vast team of producers, runners, researchers and execs at the station and the wider Beeb.

But that was a matter of opinion because in reality, I am told, by the end of his eight years at the helm the only people still thinking they were having a good time were Moyles himself and a small circle around him who worked overtime to keep a lid on his ‘tw**ish’ and ‘entitled’ behaviour.

‘It was like he got a kick out of making people uncomfortable,’ a former BBC employee told me last night.

While his critics are certainly not making the kind of allegations levelled at his ex-colleague Scott Mills – which have led to Mills being sacked from his plum job as the Radio 2 Breakfast show host – questions are arising as to why the BBC allowed Moyles to spend years behaving in a ‘laddish’ and ‘nasty’ manner.

Some will recall, for example, his endless on-air attacks on the Girls Aloud singer, Nicola Roberts. For six years he called her vile names such as ‘horsey chops’ and a ‘sour-faced old cow’.

Chris Moyles in his studio in 2003... the Leeds-born, self-styled 'saviour of Radio 1' has been accused of behaving in a 'laddish' and 'nasty' manner

While on air, he repeatedly bullied Girls Aloud singer Nicola Roberts (pictured far right with her bandmates and Moyles), which she said greatly affected her confidence

Despite the small circle around Moyles that once offered protection, Dolly Busby reveals that the radio host, now 52, was despised by many who worked underneath him

Nicola was only in her early twenties at the time and later revealed Moyles’s public bullying significantly affected her confidence, saying she struggled to look in the mirror and adding: ‘For years I felt like the ugly one in Girls Aloud.’

However, today I can reveal that behind the scenes, Moyles, now 52, was despised by many of those who worked underneath him.

A former BBC employee tells me: ‘He constantly made people feel stupid or embarrassed. It was relentless: he was loathed in the office because it was all so mean and unnecessary. It made for a bad atmosphere. And, no, it wasn’t “lad banter”, which was the usual party line. We can all take that to a certain extent. He was difficult and wouldn’t cooperate if it didn’t suit him.’

My source added: ‘But if Chris liked you, he could be charming and those he did like were completely taken in by him. They wouldn’t hear a bad word, so a “circle of loyalty” normalised his behaviour.’

Increasingly, Moyles’s former colleagues are starting to speak out publicly.

Last month, Radio 1 star Greg James told of his treatment by Moyles when he joined the station as an eager young presenter in 2007, aged 21.

In his memoir, All The Best For The Future, James, now 40, revealed his surprise at being called ‘the posh student’ – apparently based on his love of cricket – by Moyles, who was supposed to be a mentor.

Moyles quickly took against James – who is now the host of the Radio 1 Breakfast show.

Hertfordshire-born James, whose parents are both teachers, said: ‘Imagine my surprise when I turned up at Radio 1 and was thrust into the incredible daytime line-up to do the Early Breakfast show before Chris Moyles every day, only for him to start calling me “the posh student”.

‘I really wasn’t expecting that. I don’t help myself with the cricket thing, but it felt reductive to be called that.

‘Moyles didn’t know anything about me. He had no idea what my upbringing was like.

Moyles' former colleagues, including Radio 1 star Greg James, are starting to speak out against his behaviour

In his memoir, All the Best for the Future, James revealed his shock at being called ‘the posh student’ by his mentor Moyles. 'He had no idea what my upbringing was like,' James said

In 2012, Moyles was sacked from the Radio 1 Breakfast show and later replaced by the hugely popular Nick Grimshaw, 11 years his junior. (Pictured hosting Radio X in 2022)

‘He saw what he thought was a nice, excited, slightly boring 21-year-old from the Home Counties with fantastic flowing indie hair who he could wind up a bit because I was new and just very happy to be there.’

Eventually, in 2012, Moyles was called into a meeting by Radio 1's new controller, Ben Cooper, who told him he had been sacked from the Breakfast show to be replaced by Nick Grimshaw, 11 years his junior.

‘I was a bit miffed that the story that went out was that I was too old and I had got fired,’ reflected Moyles on Ross Kemp’s podcast in 2020.

‘I thought they handled it really badly. Then when [Grimshaw’s] show failed and the listening figures fell, I was like, “Not that f-ing easy, is it boys?”’

At the time of the sacking, Cooper promised a new role for the ‘furious’ presenter, but instead Moyles left the BBC and…