{"id":476003,"date":"2026-03-14T23:21:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T23:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/476003\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T23:21:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T23:21:11","slug":"greg-james-breaks-down-in-tears-on-day-two-of-1000km-comic-relief-cycle-as-he-thinks-about-his-beloved-dad-as-he-recovers-from-a-stroke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/476003\/","title":{"rendered":"Greg James breaks down in tears on day two of 1000km Comic Relief cycle as he thinks about his beloved dad as he recovers from a stroke"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greg James<\/a> broke down in tears on day two of his 1000km Comic Relief cycle as he thought about his beloved dad<\/a> as he recovers from a stroke.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Radio 1 Breakfast DJ, 40, is cycling solo for Comic Relief<\/a>, taking\u00a0off from Weymouth in Dorset and cycling all the way to Edinburgh<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Just one week before he was due to start his mammoth challenge, Greg’s father Alan suffered a stroke during a planned heart operation.<\/p>\n

And as he completed day two of his cycle, Greg shared that he became emotional as he neared the finish line as he thought about his beloved father ‘big Al’.<\/p>\n

He said: ‘I feel elated. I feel a bit overwhelmed by all these people who\u00a0just turned up out of nowhere.\u00a0I just burst into tears as I was going up to Blaenavon. It was all a bit much. And then I think Sam and Danny were playing Aperture, and it just got a bit much for me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘Just thought about… I just thought about everything. Just thought about my dad, thought about my mum. It got way too much. It’s so silly. It must have been the altitude.’<\/p>\n

\"Greg <\/p>\n

Greg James broke down in tears on day two of his 1000km Comic Relief cycle as he thought about his beloved dad as he recovers from a stroke<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The Radio 1 Breakfast DJ, 40, is cycling solo for Comic Relief , taking off from Weymouth in Dorset and cycling all the way to Edinburgh<\/p>\n

He continued: ‘And then someone gave me a Wales flag and I was holding that and I thought about my old nan, and she’s Welsh. And then I just thought about everything and then everything just made me cry, and I just felt really overwhelmed by it all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘But the day is done, and I actually can’t believe I’ve managed to get to Abergavenny.’<\/p>\n

Greg was seen again getting emotional as he gave his auntie a hug at the day’s finish line.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last Friday, Greg cancelled his show to be with his family after his father suffered a stroke during a planned heart operation.<\/p>\n

He then returned to work on Monday, confirming his father, ‘big Al’, is doing okay and is ‘still with us.’<\/p>\n

He said: ‘Thank you to Sam and Danni for Friday, as there was a slight mishap with my dad. My dad’s not very well at the minute’.<\/p>\n

‘I know that he would want me to get back on the show. And he’s still with us, which is good!’<\/p>\n

And Greg said his father is ‘fighting hard’ and would be taking ‘small steps’ on the road back to recovery.<\/p>\n

Previously talking about the challenge on his show, Greg said: ‘Here’s a video which is more serious than I like to be on here, but I just wanted to update you on what’s [been] going on the last few days of my life.<\/p>\n

\"Just <\/p>\n

Just one week before he was due to start his mammoth challenge, Greg’s father Alan suffered a stroke during a planned heart operation\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"As <\/p>\n

As he completed day two of his cycle, Greg shared that he became emotional as he neared the finish line as he thought about his beloved father ‘big Al’<\/p>\n

\"Greg <\/p>\n

Greg was seen again getting emotional as he gave his auntie a hug at the day’s finish line<\/p>\n

‘I’ve had a terrible time. My dad’s not very well. Not very well at all. And it’s horrible.<\/p>\n

‘You might have heard Sam and Danni talk about this on the Breakfast Show on Friday, because I wasn’t there. They were very lovely about it; they told lots of you, and thank you for sending me a message if you did. It’s massively appreciated.’<\/p>\n

He said: ‘In times like these, it’s so nice to feel the love from people.’\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Greg added: ‘And for those that don’t know what’s happened to my dad, I’m sorry that you’re finding out on my wildly popular social media channels.<\/p>\n

‘He was supposed to go, well, he did go in for heart surgery on Thursday, and I was on the Breakfast Show on Thursday because I thought, “That’s a good distraction”.<\/p>\n

‘I’m always banging on about how great radio is at distracting you from your life and things going to s**t. It’s good for listeners, and it’s good for the people doing it as well. So, I was happy on Thursday. I thought, “That’s the best place for me”. I love doing that.<\/p>\n

‘And then on Thursday night, we found out that, sadly, the operation didn\u2019t go to plan, and he had a stroke. Which is really s**t.’<\/p>\n

\"'I <\/p>\n

‘I just burst into tears as I was going up to Blaenavon. It was all a bit much,’ Greg said of his feelings during the cycle\u00a0<\/p>\n

Greg said he went to visit his father in the ICU over the weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He thanked the NHS for looking after his father and said: ‘Particularly the handsome doctor that he’s having by his bedside.\u00a0<\/p>\n

‘That’s one of the mad things, isn’t it, about your brain and about humans and about life, is that sometimes the best thing is to be in a WhatsApp group where you’re just talking about how fit the doctor is. And that\u2019s really helped.’<\/p>\n

He joked: ‘Hope he doesn’t see this, because then it’s gonna be awkward when I next go in.’<\/p>\n

At the time, Greg said that despite everything that’s going on, he was still pressing ahead with his Red Nose Day challenge.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greg James broke down in tears on day two of his 1000km Comic Relief cycle as he thought…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[123880,97,2169,96,59,167489,478,56,54,55,1220],"class_list":["post-476003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-comic-relief","tag-dailymail","tag-edinburgh","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-greg-james","tag-tvshowbiz","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}