Before becoming the BBC’s highest-earning employee in Northern Ireland, Stephen Nolan had humble beginnings.
Born and raised in the Shankill Road area of Belfast, he was educated at Springhill Primary School, the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and then Queen’s University where he studied French and Business, graduating in 1995.
During his time at Belfast Inst he worked in a video store.
Both of his parents had low paying jobs when he was growing up. He began his broadcasting career in the early 1990s with Queen’s, where he got his first break on Belfast Community Radio (BCR).
In the mid-1990s, he hosted a current affairs program called The Scene on BCR, earning his first Sony Radio Academy Award.
In 2002, Mr Nolan (48) joined Belfast CityBeat and won another Sony Award for his work.
The following year he joined BBC Northern Ireland and presented the Stephen Nolan Show on BBC Radio Ulster, which he presents to this day. Since July 2005 he has also presented his own weekend telephone show on BBC Radio Five Live on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings.
Over the years, he was also the face of several TV shows, including Nolan Live and The Top Table, which was recently discontinued.
Other BBC TV programs he has hosted include the weekly consumer program Fair Play and Mission Employable, which followed a group of unemployed people looking for their dream job.
He has also presented a documentary about the Shankill Butchers and a podcast series called Nolan Investigates.
Over the years he has won 16 Sony Radio Academy Awards and twice the Royal Television Society’s Regional Presenter of the Year Award, in 2005 and 2006.
In 2016, he revealed that he has paid for working-class children to attend the best high schools.
In a candid interview with the Sunday Times last year, Mr Nolan also revealed: “I hate people who suggest I’m successful because I’m not. Being a millionaire is not a success for me. The two things I would consider successful are a normal weight and children. I don’t have it either.”
He also said he has become increasingly concerned about his health in recent years.
“I am a complete failure with my health. Weight has beaten me and continues to beat me,” he said.
The broadcaster spoke out last year about taking legal action against two social media trolls, for which he subsequently received six- and five-figure payouts.
“I get abused a lot about my weight. I talk about my weight, and I’m fat, so here we go. But if someone threatens to put a bullet through your head… let me go for a while, then I thought, ‘ No,” he said.
Mr Nolan now lives in a £1million purpose-built house on the shores of Strangford Lough, complete with a swimming pool, jetty and boathouse.