From her mother’s death from cancer to her partner who killed himself, Zoe Ball has navigated a series of personal tragedies during her broadcasting career.
And the 53-year-old presenter has now announced she will be stepping back from hosting the BBC Radio 2 breakfast show after six years to focus on her family.
Ball also took a break from hosting her show over the summer, returning in September – and will present her last one next month before Scott Mills takes over.
In April, her mother Julia had died after a battle with pancreatic cancer – and Ball said at the time that the family were ‘bereft’ but would ‘hold so tight to each other’.
This heartbreak came less than a year after her five-and-a-half year relationship with model Michael Reed was revealed to have broken down in May 2023.
Another previous partner, Billy Yates, took his own life in 2017 – coming a year after the breakdown of her 18-year marriage to DJ Fatboy Slim, real name Normal Cook.
Ball and Cook, who announced their separation in 2016 then divorced in 2020, have two children together – Woody, 23, and Nelly, 14 – and remain on good terms.
Zoe Ball on the red carpet with her mother Julia at the Odeon Leicester Square in May 2010
Zoe Ball’s mother Julia (pictured) died in April this year after a battle with pancreatic cancer
Ball said in a tribute in April that the family were ‘bereft’ but would ‘hold so tight to each other’
At the time of her mother’s death, Ball wrote on social media on April 24: ‘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. We are bereft without you but will hold so tight to each other.’
And Woody wrote: ‘Today I say goodbye to Granny J, thank you for being a wonderful woman.’
Ball had taken time off from her show after revealing the diagnosis in March as her mother received chemotherapy in hospital, before being moved to a hospice.
Shortly after Ball’s announcement of her mother’s death, Gaby Roslin – who was covering the show – told listeners the news and said she wanted to send ‘so much love to Zoe and the whole family’.
Roslin and Mills both stepped in to cover Ball’s morning slot. Ball then temporarily returned to the show on August 8 for four days before Mills took over again until she came back on September 23.
Ball had previously revealed she formed a close relationship with her mother after being estranged for 14 years.
The presenter was only two years old when her parents divorced after just three years of marriage.
She was raised by her father, children’s TV presenter Johnny Ball, as well as her step-mother Di. Mr Ball remarried his second wife, Dianne Cheryl, in 1976.
Ball did not see her mother from the age of five until her late teens, despite receiving birthday cards and presents from her.
They eventually reconciled when Ball received an invitation to her mother’s 40th birthday party.
The presenter told the Mirror in 1997: ‘I could hardly breathe. My heart started pounding like mad. I suddenly panicked: ‘What if we hate each other?”
But she added: ‘Mum hadn’t changed a bit, except she didn’t seem quite so tall. We spent such a lovely first day together… lots of crying and girlie emotion.’
Ball first met Cook while in 1998 when she flew out to Ibiza to work with him on a show for BBC Radio 1, and they married in 1999 at Babington House in Somerset.
Cook later describing how Ball kept him down to earth by ‘checking him’ for his behaviour as they both became more famous.
Zoe Ball with her husband DJ Fatboy Slim, real name Norman Cook, at a gig in Japan in 2002
Zoe Ball pictured with former partner Billy Yates, who took his own life in London in May 2017
Zoe Ball split from her partner Michael Reed last year. They are pictured in London in 2021
He told the Changes podcast last year: ‘While you’ve got licence to break rules, you’ve always got a lot of people who’ll let you get away with murder.
‘Zoe was really good for me for that, because she knew the fame game and we would sort of check each other.
‘If I wasn’t respectful to people, she’d go: ”Oi, come on, that’s not how we behave! Go back and thank them for that.”’
Their marriage ended in 2016 when the couple announcing they had ‘come to the end of their rainbow’, but would ‘continue to support each other and raise our beautiful children together, living next door but one’.
Ball soon found love again with partner Mr Yates, but he killed himself in May 2017 at his home in Putney, South West London, after a long battle with depression.
At the time Kate Thornton stepped in to present her weekly Radio 2 programme on Saturday afternoon.
Ball said how she felt ‘really grateful’ that Mr Yates had said goodbye to her the last time she saw him.
Radio 2 presenters Zoe Ball and Scott Mills leaving BBC Broadcasting House in London today after Ball announced she is stepping down from the BBC Radio 2 breakfast show after six years
In March 2018 on her BBC documentary Zoe Ball’s Hardest Way Home, she fought back tears as she spoke about their final moments together.
Ball said: ‘He got on his bike and he cycled off and he turned round and he blew me a kiss goodbye, and that was the last time I saw him.’
She added: ‘It was just that moment and that feeling of ”Oh my God I love him so much, we’ll find some help and it will all be okay.” And I wish I’d told him that.’
The documentary followed how Ball took part in a gruelling Sport Relief challenge to cycle 350 miles in five days in his memory and to raise awareness of mental health issues.
She has consistently marked his death each year and returned to work at Radio 2 following his death wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with his name.
The presenter then began dating former construction worker Michael Reed in 2017.
But while friends said he was a ‘true gent’ at first, their relationship broke down after more than five years in May 2023 after Mr Reed allegedly became ‘a bit demanding’.
The couple had reportedly been arguing about very minor aspects of their life, such as Ball spending time on her phone talking to friends.
Johnny Ball (centre) celebrates his 84th birthday with his daughter Zoe Ball (left) and grandson Woody Cook (right) during the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London in May 2022
The presenter soon asked Mr Reed to move out of her home, although the two were said to have remained on good terms.
In September, her son Woody revealed he was ‘glad to see her smiling through tough times’ after she was photographed being comforted by Cook outside a café in Hove.
He told MailOnline: ‘My mum and I like to keep our private lives to ourselves but I will say 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. I’m glad to see her smiling.’
Sources close to Ball also said at the time that she had been given ‘as much time as she needs’ by the BBC, with bosses said to be doing ‘everything they can’ to help her return to work when she was ready.
A source told MailOnline at the time: ‘Zoe’s had a tough few months. She had the death of her mum in April to deal with and it’s not been an easy time for her.
‘She has taken the time off because she needed a break with everything that has been going on for her. Her bosses are being very supportive and just want her to be in a place where she is ready to return to work.
‘Zoe is expected to come back before the end of the month. Nobody is telling her an exact date to come back, the decision is very much on her. She’s been told to take all the time she needs.’
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.
Ball took over the Radio 2 morning programme in 2019 from Chris Evans.
But she said today: ‘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,’
She will host her last show on December 20 with Mills, who currently hosts Radio 2’s weekday afternoon programme from 2-4pm, set to begin fronting the programme from early January.
Ball has presented the BBC spin-off show Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two, and ITV’s reality competition show Mamma Mia! I Have A Dream.
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