BORN on April Fools day, 1966, in Warrington, Chris' creative and entrepreneurial zeal emerged at an early age when he ran the local newsagents and set up his own kiss-o-gram and Private Detective agencies.

Chris started his broadcasting career at Piccadilly Radio and then exploded into the nation's mornings in September 1992 Channel 4's The BIG Breakfast. The show topped two million viewers and Chris' time on the show made him a national star.

In 1993, the flame haired personality devised, wrote and hosted his own show called Don't Forget Your Toothbrush before bowing out after a second series to concentrate on his end-of-week show TFI Friday, which ran for five years until December 2000.

In 2001 it was confirmed that Chris and teen pop star Billie Piper had married in a secret Las Vegas ceremony. Months later he was sacked by Virgin after allegedly going on a drinking spree and missing several of his breakfast shows.

In 2004 Chris and Billie announced their divorce. Billie insisted that she would not take a penny' from the divorce and the pair maintained that they would always be best friends.

After a couple of years away from the public eye Chris returned to the limelight in 2005 to launch his new talk show OFI Sunday, and presented The Brit Awards and Comic Relief.

Later that year Chris joined Radio 2 to present his regular Saturday afternoon show, and moved on to presenting the Drivetime show in 2006.