Fearne Cotton has opened up on her ‘excruciating time’ presenting on BBC Radio 1 – where she became so anxious she would hide in the toilet while songs were being played during her show.
Cotton, 42, fronted the Radio 1 chart show between 2008 and 2009 before presenting her own weekday show for six years.
But the broadcaster has confessed to ‘massively struggling’ whilst doing the job and says she felt ‘incapable’ of speaking to millions of people everyday. The mum-of-two, who made her name presenting kids television, has said she felt forced to quit radio altogether after suffering a series of panic attacks.
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Discussing her experiences, Cotton told The Shift podcast that she was pleased mental health had become a more discussable topic in workplaces.
(Image: PA)
She said: “I wish it had been different in a way back then because I had such an excruciating time when I was on Radio 1.
“I didn’t feel I could tell anyone because we didn’t know that was a possibility back then that you could say ‘look, I am really struggling here and I don’t know what to do’ and there’s still a long way to go but I’m so glad that there is at least a crack in the door.
“I’m so glad that the ties have changed but back then I massively struggled in that situation of feeling so incapable of doing my job and talking publicly to millions of people everyday whilst slowly corroding inside.
“Sometimes I’d sort of get up and go to the toilet while songs were on and just sort of sit there but I certainly wouldn’t tell anyone why or what was going on.”
Cotton would leave Radio 1 in 2015 after announcing she was pregnant with her second child, before joining BBC Radio 2 in 2016. She stepped away from live radio completely in 2021 and says the trigger point was a series of panic attacks.
She explained: “As I started to get back into work, literally out of the blue, I started getting panic attacks. Which I’ve wondered if it was me coming out of a period of depression and a stark wake up to all of this stuff: because it felt a very harsh switch.
“The panic attacks in my early 30s were thick and fast and I was being triggered if I went too fast in a vehicle or, certainly, if I was on live TV or radio.
“And I persevere for a bit, on live radio, I was covering for Zoe Ball for maybe a year but then it got to the point where I was fine on-air but I couldn’t sleep at night; I was having panic attacks for hours, all night long, it was horrendous.
“And I wasn’t sleeping for days so I told Radio 2 ‘look, I’m just not mentally capable of doing this live stuff anymore’ and stood down from a really great job.”
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