Never the most academic pupil, her school report read: “If Zoe Ball spent as much time on her work as she did in entertaining the rest of the class, she’d go far.” She then started an unusual degree in media studies, geology and computer science at City of London Polytechnic, but dropped out after four months.
Ball decided to follow her father into TV after being inspired by the likes of Sally James on Tiswas and No 73’s Andrea Arnold. After stints as a researcher and runner for production companies, Ball followed her father by launching her on-screen career in children’s broadcasting. Ball got her break on Playdays, before joining CBBC’s Smart in 1994, alongside Mark Speight and Jay Burridge, then the Saturday morning children’s magazine show Live & Kicking with Jamie Theakston.
Music was always her passion, however, and she managed to win a gig presenting Top of the Pops in 1996, where she alternated duties with Jo Whiley and Jayne Middlemiss. In 1997 she was named as Kevin Greening’s co-host of the Radio 1 breakfast show, and quickly took sole charge.
The same year that she joined Radio 1, she met Norman Cook, aka Fatboy Slim, while the breakfast show was hosted live from Ibiza. His chat-up line was: “How would you like to not go to bed with me tonight?” They partied all night and she presented the programme without any sleep, later admitting that she was so high that she “could hardly speak”.