Proud Sheffield mum 'accosts' radio star Chris Evans to get singer daughter Chanel Yates on the radio

A proud Sheffield mum ‘ambushed’ radio star Chris Evans - to get her singer songwriter daughter’s music on his show!

Abigail Yates, from Broomhill, drove down from Sheffield to London on Wednesday to wait for the Virgin Radio presenter to turn up, promising him that she was ‘not a weirdo’, before getting a selfie and asking him to play a song by her daughter, the singer Chanel Yates.

Chris said he was off to a meeting - but told her were she could leave some details for him..

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And despite doubts from Chanel, Chris was good to his word, and played Chanel’s song Studio Apartment on his show on Thursday morning.

He said on his show: “A mum accosted me in the street yesterday. She said, on the way to the lunch, she said ‘I’m accosting you, I’m accosting you, but don’t panic, she said, I’m not a weirdo. I said ‘you could’ve fooled me! She clearly wasn’t, as a weirdo wouldn’t say that.

“All she wanted to do was tell me how great her daughter was at singing, could we play a song on the show. Her name’s Abi, her daughter’s called Chanel. We can’t just play people’s songs on the show, otherwise we’d have to do that all the time and there’d be loads of people waiting for us outside the building every day, because they’d then know that we did that, but she is really good, and her name is Chanel Yates. We’ll play a bit of it - how good is this?”

After playing a clip from Abbey’s song, he added: “She’s not a weirdo, but she’s a mum who dearly loves her daughter, her very, very talented daughter. How good was that?”

Chanel, also from Broomhill but currently living in London, was surprised to hear her song - and delighted with the response. She described her mum as a Chris Evans superfan.

She said: “Mum basically ambushed him! She sent us a picture of a selfie herself with him to show us that she’d spoken to him. I never thought he’s play some of my music though!”

Chanel has recently changed her style from pop to a country music style. She has played Tramlines in the past, and says she would love to play the festival again with her new country style.

She plays a show at Mama Roux’s in Birmingham on April 26, and plans to released an EP soon. The 24 year old is also a former contestant on the TV show The Voice.