Broadcaster Zoe Ball has revealed she wakes up most days with “awful headaches” due to a health condition which causes pain in the jaw joint and surrounding muscles.
In an Instagram post, she said she had a temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder, which affects the movement of the jaw, according to the NHS.
The 54-year-old announced earlier this month she was stepping down from hosting Radio 2’s Breakfast show after six years, with Scott Mills set to take over the slot.
Discussing her condition, she wrote: “I have TMJ and wake most days with awful headaches from tension & jaw clenching.”
Ball shared a photo of her face tensed before receiving treatment and an aftershot of it more relaxed, saying she was “so grateful” to the clinic which has helped her.
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Symptoms of temporomandibular disorder (TMD) include pain around your jaw, ear and temple, a headache around your temples and difficulty opening your mouth fully.
Ball revealed on her BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show on 19 November that she felt it was time for her to “step away from the very early mornings and focus on family”.
Ball took a break from hosting her show over the summer, returning in September, and in April this year announced the death of her mother Julia Peckham.
She was previously married to Norman Cook, known as Fatboy Slim, and the pair have two children together, son Woody Fred Cook, born in 2000, and daughter Nelly who was born in 2010.
Ball was the BBC’s highest-paid on-air female presenter in 2023/24 with a salary between £950,000 and £954,999, ranking her second on the list of top-earning talent behind Gary Lineker, according to the corporation’s annual report published in July.
She was the first female host of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show in 1998, a post she held until 2000, and she also co-hosted the BBC’s Saturday morning children’s magazine Live & Kicking alongside Jamie Theakston for three years from 1996.