Vernon Kay says ‘we’ll not go there’ as he brutally slams BBC colleague for ‘hideous personal hygiene’

Radio 2 star Vernon Kay criticised the ‘personal hygeine’ of someone who works at Broadcasting House but refused to name them when pressed by fellow presenter Scott Mills

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Vernon Kay slammed a BBC colleague(Image: ITV)

Vernon Kay has slammed a BBC co-star who he says has “hideous personal hygiene”. However when pressed on the identity of the colleague, BBC Radio 2 star Vernon declined and said “we’ll not go there”.

During an on-air discussion, Vernon’s Radio 2 co-star Scott Mills revealed that one of the loos at Broadcasting House had an emergency pull cord that “was not working”. It was an insight that Scott, 52, joked was a “peak behind the curtain” at the popular broadcaster.

It prompted Vernon, 51, to blast the anonymous colleague. He told Scott: “There’s someone on this floor that has hideous personal hygiene but we’ll not go there.” It prompted Breakfast show presenter Scott to push for more information, responding: “Oh well let’s go there.”

Vernon however was quick to shut down the discussion. He replied: “No, we don’t need that conversation, we’re not going to go there.” It led Scott to query whether he knew the individual, with Vernon answering: “Well I hope not.”

Scott then joked: “Wow, okay then, I wasn’t expecting this. Well I’m off to buy a plug-in and then I’ll see you tomorrow.” He later clarified that he was referring to a plug-in air freshener, alluding to the possible hygiene problem mentioned by Vernon.

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Vernon didn’t name his colleague(Image: Getty Images)

It’s not the first time Vernon has had a gripe about hygiene at Radio 2. In 2024 he complained that someone had been “messing around with” his studio and “ruined it” before he went on air. He told listeners he feared Radio 1 were behind the incident.

The dad-of-two explained that he found the station’s branded muffs left lying around before his show. He concluded that he would “just blame” Radio 1 Breakfast star Greg James, leading to claims he was “insulting” Greg.

Undeterred, Vernon confronted Greg on air. He said: “Can you have a word with your team? It’s a disgrace.” Greg denied the chaos-causing allegations, saying: “It’s not me Vern, I’ve checked and it’s not them either. I’ve checked everyone.”

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Radio 2 star Vernon(Image: PA)

Greg suggested the team who work on Radio 1’s New Music Show, but believed it could have been an inside job however. To which Vernon replied: “It must be someone, the mic muffs were Radio 1 muffs. We leave it all nice and spotless, we have a spirit level which makes sure everything is fine.”

Greg responded: “Janice is in early every morning and she’s in when we’re in, she knows how tidy and good we are, it’s true.” Vernon however insisted the studio was left like a “children’s playroom” in the morning, although the star insisted he wasn’t “having a pop” at Greg.

Greg joked he would put an email out in a bid to track down the culprit. He told Vernon: “You’ve changed, you’re still Radio 1 at heart. I will put an all-staff email out, I’ll put some cameras out. Do you know what? I’m going to go on guard. When I get in early, I’m going to do a sweep of your studio just to check everything is okay for uncle Vernon, because we don’t want you cross this Christmas.”

Elsewhere, Vernon recently revealed he suffered an injury while jumping down two stairs at the BBC canteen, something he says he would do a lot as a child. It made him realise he is now “of an age” and he needs to be more careful when pulling these sort of stunts.

The Bolton-born star said: “You’ve got to be careful when you’re doing stuff like that. When you do things like that it makes you realise you’re off an age. I did that giddy thing today, and this relates to the story we’re going to do on your voice notes later.

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Vernon recently injured himself before a show(Image: PA)

“As you step down into the BBC canteen, there’s just two steps. There’s two steps. Now if you take yourself back to when you were 11, at high school, you would jump those two steps. You’d see the two steps and go ‘wahey, I’m not going to step down the two steps, I’m going to jump down the two steps.’

“Well I unfortunately did that this morning. In the canteen I saw two steps and thought ‘I’ll jump down them, easy.’ Like a kid. Well my knees don’t have the suspension they used to have when I was 11.

“They were like two fence posts and I felt it right in the hips. It went right up to the top of my spine. You just can’t do it anymore. You just can’t do it anymore.”