After 17 years at the BBC – from embarrassing herself in front of Pete Tong to forgetting she interviewed Rihanna – Mac hangs up her headphones with an emotional plea to her many fans
Annie Mac has a terrible memory. It’s a trait the DJ has mentioned repeatedly in interviews – often blaming her profession’s sleepless lifestyle – and even based an entire podcast series around: Finding Annie was premised on her desire to dig up lost memories related to crucial aspects of her life, from childbirth to Irishness.
It’s also been a running joke on her final stretch of BBC Radio 1 shows. As the 43-year-old prepares to depart the station this week after 17 years of broadcasting, she has found herself with the strange task of summing up her own legacy – which is especially hard when you can’t recall great swathes of your career (including an interview with Rihanna). Luckily, the BBC archives act as a handy back-up memory. Mac starts her final broadcast by replaying her first ever link on her first ever show, 2004’s The Mash Up. Self-effacingly recounting her failure to find something with “symbolism and hidden meaning” to kick things off, the young Mac has instead resorted to a track by High Contrast notable only for sparking joy. This show, she concludes, is “all about things that make you jump up and down and say yeah!”
