Chris Evans's Biography

Chris Evans was born on 1 April 1966, in Warrington, England.

His Saturday morning show on GLR (the BBC's London radio show at the time), was innovative and exciting and it was not long before Chris Evans transferred his talents to a wider audience.

An early success for Chris Evans was as co-presenter on Channel 4's The Big Breakfast, which he started working on in September 1992.

The following year, Chris Evans established Ginger Productions with whom he presented Channel 4's Don't Forget Your Toothbrush.

In 1995 he had another success this time back on radio, where he helped Radio 1 audiences to increase with his Breakfast Show.

However, he left the BBC in strained circumstances. Radio 1's head at the time, Matthew Bannister, had issued a warning to Chris Evans after he failed to show up to work; and after Evans's demand to have Fridays off was refused, he left Radio 1.

Instead Chris Evans presented another Channel 4 hit, TFI Friday.

Evans also joined Virgin Radio to present their breakfast show.

Shortly afterwards, Evans turned media magnate taking over Virgin Radio after buying out Richard Branson.

However in 2000, Chris Evans sold his Ginger Media Group, which included his interest in Virgin Radio to Scottish Media.

2000 also saw the end of TFI Friday, whose last episode, on 22 December 2000 was actually hosted by Elton John.

Chris Evans later had a legal run-in with Virgin Radio. Evans was sacked by Virgin Radio after he began a three-day drinking binge.

When Mr Justice Lightman threw out Evans's case against Virgin, he characterised Chris Evans:

"He has the temperament of a prima donna. He always expects and demands compliance with his wishes. He is petulant and given to sulking and walking away from situations whenever he considers himself thwarted. He is a person who cannot tolerate either criticism or the exercise by management of authority over what he does ... he is manipulative and has resort to any means, fair or foul, to achieve his ends."

In 2005 Chris Evans joined Radio 2 to present a Saturday afternoon show and in April 2006 he started to present the weekday drive time show.

Chris Evans is a director of UMTV.

In November 2005, Chris Evans presented a chat show OFI Sunday on ITV.

The first guest was his ex-wife, Billie Piper, whom he split up with in 2004. They had married in a secret ceremony in Las Vegas.

On May 31 2007 Billie Piper and Chris Evans were granted a divorce. It was roughly three years after their separation.

Chris Evans was first married in 1991 to Carol McGiffin.

Chris Evans is a keen golfer and, in 2007, he married golf pro Natasha Shishmanian, who was the 'Golf Nurse' for Golf Punk magazine.

In May 2008, Chris Evans paid over £5m for a Ferrari, a 250 GT SWB California Spyder that had been owned by James Coburn. It was the largest sum ever paid for a car at auction.

On 17 July 2008, Chris Evans posted on his blog a scan image of the foetus of the baby that he and Natasha Shishmanian are expecting.

On 10 February 2009, Natasha Shishmanian and Chris Evans had a son Noah, who weighed 7lbs 4oz.

In May 2009, Chris Evans won the Music Radio Personality of the Year Award and the Entertainment Award at the Sony Radio Academy Awards.

In September 2009, it was revealed that Chris Evans was to take over from Sir Terry Wogan on Radio 2's breakfast slot from the end of the year.

In 2009, Chris Evans released his autobiography, It's Not What You Think, which details his life up to 1997 when he bought Virgin Radio from Sir Richard Branson.

In April 2010 Media Guardian reported that Chris Evans would replace Adrian Chiles as the presenter of BBC1's The One Show on Friday nights.

In October 2010 Chris Evans released his second autobiographical book, entitled Memoirs of a Fruitcake.

In January 2011, Chris Evans started hosting a Channel Four series Famous and Fearless.

On 16 June 2015, the BBC announced that Chris Evans would replace Jeremy Clarkson as the main presenter of Top Gear.

However, the series did not rate well and on 4 July 2016 Chris Evans announced that he was stepping down from Top Gear.

In July 2017, the BBC revealed that Chris Evans was its highest paid presenter, earning over £2.2 million from licence fee revenue in their financial year 2016/7.

In September 2018 it was announced that Chris Evans was to leave BBC Radio 2 in December.

Later in the same month, Chris Evans's wife Natasha Shishmanian gave birth to twins.

In December 2018, it was revealed that Evans would be joining Virgin Radio in 2019.

His first broadcast back at Virgin was on the breakfast show on 21 January 2019.

In August 2023, he was diagnosed with skin cancer. However, eight weeks later he revealed that the doctors had caught it quickly and he was free of cancer.