When Zoe Ball returned to BBC Radio 2 after an unexplained six-week absence this summer, she tried to keep the tone breezy. ‘Morning gorgeous people!’ she greeted listeners. ‘It’s me Zoe, the happy wanderer. I’ve wandered back.’
But insiders say her upbeat, business-as-usual attitude masked the unhappiness that had kept her off air for so long, and yesterday – just two months after her comeback in late September – Zoe announced she was leaving the show for good.
Her final Breakfast Show will be on December 20, with her good friend Scott Mills then taking over the prestigious slot. In a statement, the 53-year-old said: ‘After six incredible years on the Radio 2 Breakfast Show, it’s time for me to step away from the very early mornings and focus on family. It’s been a privilege.’
She added that she was grateful to her bosses for their support and concluded: ‘I’m excited to embrace my next chapter, including being a mum in the mornings. I can’t wait to tune in on the school run.’
When Zoe started in the role in January 2019, her son Woody was 18 and daughter Nelly had just turned nine. As a result, she has missed seeing them both at breakfast for a significant chunk of their young lives.
Nelly is now 14, and some critics have scoffed at the idea of Zoe doing the school run with her. But a BBC source close to the presenter says: ‘She simply wants to live differently, which means having more of a family life.’
And as any mother of a teenager can confirm, a young adult may need you just as much as a younger child, albeit in different ways.
Zoe Ball reveals she is leaving her Radio 2 show with insiders saying her upbeat, business-as-usual attitude masked the unhappiness that had kept her off air for so long
Ms Ball’s final Breakfast Show will be on December 20, with her good friend Scott Mills, pictured left, taking over the prestigious slot
The catalyst for the change, according to insiders, was the death of Zoe’s mother Julia, who passed away in April after a brutally fast 12-week battle with pancreatic cancer. Their relationship had not always been easy, but the pair had become very close in recent years.
Thrice-married Julia, a glamorous model who had been the Kodak poster girl in the 1970s, left Zoe’s father, Johnny Ball, then a well-known TV presenter, when Zoe was just two. When she was six, Johnny married a dancer, Di, and the couple brought her up, along with her two half-brothers, Nick and Dan.
Julia also remarried and had a son, Jamie, then married again and gained two stepdaughters, Ellie and Hannah. Zoe saw her mum regularly until she was seven, but then didn’t see her again until she was 18.
‘My mum said that from the minute she was pregnant, I was always Daddy’s girl and when they split up everybody thought it would be best for me to stay with my dad,’ Zoe said later.
‘I saw my mum until I was about seven, but then she stayed away because she thought it would give me more stability. It was never a problem for me because I always knew she was there.’
When she was 18 and Julia 40, mother and daughter were reconciled – with Zoe saying it was as if they had never been estranged.
‘Her husband, Rick, rang me up and said it would be a really nice surprise for her if I got in touch. So I did and it was quite an emotional day,’ she said.
Clearly they made up for lost time. In a poignant tribute posted to Instagram after Julia’s death, Zoe wrote: ‘Sleep tight dear Mama. Thank you for teaching us how to love unconditionally, to always show courage and empathy. And how, even in the darkest of days, laughter is the greatest of gifts.’
Ms Ball lost her mother Julia in April after a brutally fast 12-week battle with pancreatic cancer
Her heartbreak was clear. Zoe kept going until August with the support of friends, including her former husband Norman Cook, aka the musician Fatboy Slim, but sources say she reached a point when she needed to take a break.
Her bosses at the BBC told her to take as long as she needed. There were no announcements that she was off or that she was coming back – Zoe wanted privacy, and the BBC respected that.
Son Woody, now 23 and a successful DJ like his father, hinted in September that his mother had been going through ‘tough times’. ‘I have stepped up and spent a lot more time with her recently as she has always been there when I’ve had tough times,’ he said.
Sources indicate that deferred and complex grief following her mother’s death – on top of tragedies including the death by suicide of her boyfriend Billy Yates in 2017 and a split from her partner Michael Reed last year – meant that she had ‘reached the end of her tether’.
Hence Zoe – famous for those ‘ladette’ years of hedonism in the 1990s when she was on Radio 1 – is leaving her exhausting schedule to spend more time with family.
A source said: ‘In the end, this was completely her decision. She came to them [the BBC] in September after she had had a break to think about her life and said: ‘I’m done.’ The BBC… wanted a bit of time to put everything in place, which they were able to do. They looked at who might do it… I think they only seriously considered Vernon Kay and Scott Mills.’
It says everything about Zoe’s loyalty and grace that she and the BBC were able to manage her exit so harmoniously.
Within the broadcaster, many are contrasting her smooth farewell with the bumpier exit of Gary Lineker from BBC1’s Match Of The Day. He is leaving after intense speculation over his contract negotiations and without an appointed successor.
A split from her partner Michael Reed last year meant the broadcaster had ‘reached the end of her tether’
Ms Ball with Billy Yates, her boyfriend who was found dead at his London flat in 2017
After a year of scandals – not least that surrounding disgraced former news anchor Huw Edwards – the last thing the BBC needs is another row over the handling of its highest paid stars.
A source adds: ‘The BBC have had to be really careful because anything to do with mental health needs to be handled sensitively. Also, Zoe is a woman of a certain age and they would never be seen to be encouraging her to leave.’
The truth is, Zoe Ball’s life was changing even before her mother fell ill. In February, she put her country house in East Sussex on the market after finding it was far too big for her, having split from boyfriend Reed, a former model.
Friends say that was a ‘wringing’ break-up as the couple had been together since 2018 – but some thought she was better off without him. In 2020, it emerged he was claiming benefits and had been ordered to pay almost £20,000 in child-maintenance arrears to the mother of his daughter.
That wasn’t a good look for Zoe, who is the second-highest paid presenter on the BBC’s books. Indeed only Lineker, paid £1.3million by the Corporation, earned more. Figures for 2023/4 released in the BBC’s annual report say that she received a whopping salary of £950,000.
In early spring, Zoe quietly moved to a townhouse in Brighton. Perhaps that was the first step towards building a new, more family-focused life closer to her ex-husband Norman, 61, a long-term Brighton resident with whom she shares custody of Nelly.
Indeed, they seem never to have got on better. She spoke on the radio yesterday about their 1999 wedding at the private members’ club Babington House in Somerset. ‘That was a good do,’ Zoe said fondly. It is her 54th birthday on Saturday – November 23 – and she will spend it watching Fatboy Slim play in north London.
Over the summer, she and Norman watched Woody play at Glastonbury and attended a number of his other gigs, plus various engagements and pub lunches.
Might they ever get back together? They split in 2016 and were divorced in 2020, but both are single at present. It’s probably nothing more than wishful thinking on the part of their large group of mutual friends, but there are whispers of a new closeness.
I’m told that Norman is ‘very much there for her’ – though, beyond that, nobody seems to know. Their love story was an integral part of ‘Cool Britannia’ – Zoe once joked the pair partied so hard she couldn’t remember the 1990s. Both are now sober.
Rising to prominence on the BBC children’s TV show Live And Kicking, Zoe went on to have stints on The Big Breakfast and Top Of The Pops, and, in 1997, took the helm of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show. She met Norman the following year in Ibiza.
In 2003, they separated briefly after Norman discovered Zoe had been unfaithful with his friend, the DJ Dan Peppe. Norman told reporters: ‘I still love her. If you love someone, you’ll forgive them.’
Zoe’s father Johnny added: ‘When she left for that silly DJ, I know exactly why that was. Woody was exactly the same age as Zoe was when her mother left. She was thinking, “I’m like my mother, I’m going to let us all down”. It was a cry for help.’
In 2017, Zoe found love again with cameraman Billy Yates, who had been a friend for years. Tragically, just a few months later Billy was found dead at his London flat. It was determined he had died by suicide.
Zoe in 2010 with Norman Cook and baby daughter Nelly, who is now 14
Devastated, Zoe spoke about the need to help people suffering from depression when she was a guest on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. She also completed a
five-day bike ride for Sports Relief in 2018, raising £500,000 for relevant charities.
That year she was announced as the new presenter of Radio 2’s Breakfast Show. She said she was terrified to follow in previous host Chris Evan’s footsteps, but had been encouraged by Woody. ‘He said ‘Mum, come on… it’s like the coolest thing you can do. Be the first girl on Radio 2 Breakfast.’
Yesterday Zoe promised she would have another show on Radio 2, to be announced next year. Sources say she is also keen to do more TV work, perhaps alongside Woody – they are a popular pairing on Celebrity Gogglebox.
After so many tragedies, who could blame Zoe for wanting to hold her family just a little bit tighter?