Matthew Wright
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Alexander Matthew Wright (born July 8, 1965 in Croydon, Surrey) is a British journalist and Television presenter.
He attended the John Fisher School in Purley, London at the same time as his good friend, the well-known artist and sculptor Diarmuid Byron O'Connor and DJ Gilles Peterson. Actor Bill Nighy was also an alumnus of the school.
He was a showbiz journalist with The Sun before getting his own column with The Daily Mirror in the 90s. After quitting the Mirror in 2000 to launch mykindaplace.com, he went on to host his own daytime talk show The Wright Stuff. It was on this show that Wright inadvertently 'outed' John Leslie as the celebrity that had allegedly raped Ulrika Jonsson. Police investigated Leslie but never charged him with respect to the Jonsson case. Wright and Leslie later made fun of the situation in the video for Bo' Selecta's 2003 Christmas single.
Matthew met one of his heroes, Dave Brock, leader of veteran rock band Hawkwind while working at LBC. Brock couldn't believe his ears when Wright started singing along to all the Hawkwind records they played that morning, getting all the lyrics right; something Brock has sometimes struggled with on stage. Dave invited Matthew to join the band to sing his favourite Hawkwind song, Spirit of the Age, at London's Astoria Theatre in December 2003. In 2005 he appeared on the Hawkwind album, Take Me to Your Leader, providing guest vocals on a new version of "Spirit of the Age".
Matthew has presented Radio 2's arts and culture show The Weekender which airs every Friday night from 10pm. It is also available on the Listen Again feature on the BBC Radio 2 website. Recent guests have included Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, Jarvis Cocker and Damon Albarn.
In March 2006 Wright was arrested on suspicion of riding a bicycle in a public park. On numerous occasions he has used his media ventures in order to express frustration that the police had "nothing better to do". Divorced, Matthew is reputed to be single.
He was also a newsround presenter for a short time but was later replaced by Lizo Mzimba
