大象传媒

Zoe Ball was the first woman to host the Radio 1 Breakfast Show, which she helmed between 1997 and 2000. Two decades later she is the first female host of the Radio 2 Breakfast Show, where she currently wakes up 8 million listeners every week. In a career of early mornings, she came to prominence on TV as presenter in the kids' Saturday morning show Live & Kicking and also now presents 大象传媒 Two’s Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two. Here are some of the things she shared with Lauren Laverne when she was interviewed for Desert Island Discs.

1. Her famous father introduced her to the thrill of broadcasting

Zoe’s dad is the much-loved children’s television presenter Johnny Ball, and it was during childhood trips with him to 大象传媒 Television Centre that she first became excited about what was to become her career. “You’d go into Television Centre and to me it was like a wonderland." she remembers. "From the minute you walked in there’d be the Two Ronnies in the lift, Roy Castle would be there – ‘alright John, alright John’ – and you’d walk into these television studios and I’d think: ‘This is where the magic happens, this is something quite incredible.’”

2. After her parents separated she didn’t see her mother for many years

Her parents split when she was a toddler, with her mother leaving Zoe with her father. “It was tough not seeing my mum for all those years, because I think it does make you question a lot of stuff as a kid,” she says. But they are now reconciled: “I was very loved and very supported and everyone gets on great now so that’s good,” she reflects.

3. At school she was the class clown

“I think my reports mainly said: ‘If Zoe Ball spent as much time on her work as she did in entertaining the rest of the class she’d go far,’” Zoe says, explaining that she would put on what she calls “terrible Zoe Ball Productions” for the rest of the class. “I think I did Annie once. We used the climbing frames at the back of the school hall for climbing up the bridge at the end.”

4. She was a fake baker

An early TV job saw her working behind the scenes on BSkyB kids' show Cool Cube, but she admits she wasn’t great. “I was in charge of the cookery items. I was terrible,” she says. “I used to cheat: I used to go to the supermarket and buy muffins, take them out the wrappers and then get these kids to just pull them out of the oven. I mean, it was such a scam! But I loved it.”

5. She began a degree but quit after four months

Her decision to start a course in "Media, Geology and Computer Science" at City of London Polytechnic was taken lightly: “I think that was the result of someone not really doing any work for A-levels, so I took the first thing I could find,” she explains. “I was in this class of geology students who’d done geology for about a year. I had no clue what was going on. They all had these tiny little hammers and they used to go to the beach and talk about limestone. I really did not fit in, how I chose that I’ve no idea.” After just four months she left: “I don’t think anyone within City Poly noticed I was gone.”

6. Her hairdresser introduced her to the Madchester music scene

Choosing The Stone Roses' track Shoot You Down, Zoe recalls the impact the Manchester music scene had on her when she was living in the city, initially working for Granada TV. “I’d been there for two years before my hairdresser said to me: ‘What do you mean you’ve never heard of the Hacienda, Zoe?’” she says of the legendary nightclub. “Little did I know, as I was living in Chorlton, Whalley Range, going on around me was this incredible musical revolution. So [I went] to the Hacienda and my life changed forever.”

7. She got her first presenting job by talking to Andi Peters about an inflatable dinosaur

It took an audition with kids' TV favourite Andi Peters to get her in front of the camera. “I got a call that Children’s 大象传媒 were looking for presenters,” she explains. “I finally plucked up the courage and went across. I did an audition with Andi Peters where I had to talk about an inflatable dinosaur for about 20 minutes. The thing about going into the 大象传媒, and the Children’s department then, was they taught you about broadcasting.”

8. She got labelled a ‘ladette’ but she hates the term

“I wince when I hear that word 'ladette',” she says, but admits that she was tasked with going out and partying with bands and then returning to “tell us all those stories” when she was at Radio 1. “I took that slightly too literally,” she says and credits her late co-host Kevin Greening for helping her: “Thank goodness to Kevin Greening, the wonderful Kevin Greening, who held that ship for many, many months while I would go out and about and come in and tell those stories.”

9. Fellow DJ Sara Cox told her she would love Norman Cook before Zoe had even met him

Zoe had a long, high-profile marriage to the DJ Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim. They met when Radio 1 sent her and fellow presenter Sara Cox to Ibiza. “Sara said to me: ‘You’re going to love Norman Cook when you meet him.’ And so off we went to Ibiza, packed our little bags, and I met Norm and I did indeed love him. There was this bonkers, brilliant chap who played records and made people dance and he would conduct the crowd,” she says. “I just thought he was wild and free and fun and it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

10. She has had Iggy Pop and David Byrne as houseguests

Her time with Norman Cook took her celebrity lifestyle to the next level. “It was wonderful because great people would come into the house,” she says. “He’d work with amazing people and I’d sort of have to pinch myself. Iggy Pop came to stay for a while. David Byrne came to stay at the house. That was quite a moment, thinking: ‘What? Sorry? David Byrne of Talking Heads is coming to stay at our house?!’ And there’s David Byrne in the kitchen eating Coco Pops – it was so wonderful.”

11. She has overcome addiction

Her years as a party girl took their toll but she went to rehab and has struggled in overcoming addiction. “Often you find that you’ll deal with it a little bit but then you’ll slip back into old ways. And I sort of dealt with one thing and then another thing would affect me and it took me a couple of attempts to sort that out.”

12. She makes an emotional tribute to her late partner Billy Yates

She chooses Frank Wilson’s Northern soul classic Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) in tribute to boyfriend Billy Yates, who took his own life in 2017. “Billy was my partner,” she says. “We’d been friends for a few years and we got together. He had lived with depression for a huge chunk of his life and it’s so hard to sit and watch someone you love and care for struggle with their mental health. Losing him was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with in my life.”

“I don’t want people to remember him for how he died. I want people to remember him for how he lived his life. He was so full of love. He would help anyone in need. He was always there for anyone in need. He brought so much into my life, he brought so much into his family and into his friends’ lives. I wanted to play a piece of music that reflected who he was: he loved to dance and he loved to laugh and this track will always remind me of him.”