Fearne Cotton: "I wasn't doing so well mentally in my old career"
"It's just maybe a level of average contentment that I'm aiming for – I don't even know if I'm needing to land on happiness," says the podcaster and author.
"I'm pretty happy these days when I just feel even and average. I'm not looking for euphoria.
"It's about those moments where there's a bit of mental peace and I just feel kind of balanced," the 43-year-old explains. "It's not circumstantial. Before I'd think, [happiness is] being on a holiday with a beautiful beach and no laptop and having a nice cocktail. But actually I could do that and be going mad in my head."
The former BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 presenter, who rose to fame first on children's TV and later Top Of The Pops in the early Noughties, says her old TV and radio life "hugely" affected her mental health.
"I wasn't doing so well mentally in my old career," says Cotton, who announced her split from husband Jesse Wood in December 2024 after 10 years of marriage. The pair share two children, Rex and Honey, and Cotton is stepmother to Wood's two children from a previous relationship, Arthur and Lola.
She's largely left the TV and radio world behind, and says live broadcasting is not a position she wants to put herself in at the moment. "I think it's so exposing, people are incredibly judgmental.
"There's no room in traditional media, certainly not when I was growing up as a teenager in the early Noughties, in my 20s, to be thoroughly yourself.
"There was no space to fade up the microphone on Radio 1 and say, 'I'm feeling like death today'. You've got to be jolly and play music – so people probably only saw that side of me, and I was terrified to show the other side of me."
Cotton – who has been open in sharing her struggles with depression and OCD – started the Happy Place Podcast in 2018, interviewing famous faces and notable people, exploring themes of mental health, wellbeing, and happiness. A year later she launched the Happy Place Festival and now also writes self-help, healthy eating and children's books.
"I believe that what I've created, very luckily, is a career where I'm not waiting around to be chosen by anyone because I'm deemed good enough, or popular enough," she says.
Cotton considers herself an introvert, but says, "I wonder how much of it is naturally, authentically who I am, and how much of it is almost a response to the more troubling times I've had being in the public eye – where you're so instantly judged and people so easily make assumptions, and you're so hyper alert to what you've said, in case someone takes it the wrong way.
"So sometimes I wonder, am I an introvert? Am I naturally someone that likes to be in my own company, or is it just because it feels safer?
But, she admits: "I crave being on my own with nothing to do, and then when I'm in it, I'm a bit lost, so I sort of have to push myself, because I actually feel great when I've had a good experience with other people."
Connecting with other people is a big theme of both her podcast and festival (now biannually in London and Cheshire). "I hope [people] leave feeling a bit better really.
"I know when I'm going through something that feels mentally trying, I always assume I'm the only person on the planet that's ever felt like that, because you get into that sort of narcissistic vortex of hell where you just think no one else has ever had these awful thoughts or felt so low."
From guest speakers and workshops to meditation, sound healing and yoga classes, "People have deep conversations off the back of hearing talks, it might make you feel more connected to other people who have been through tricky things. I want people to come together and feel like it's a safe space to explore whatever they're going through in their lives and their heads and [know] they're not alone in it.
"Once you have said that thing that you feel awful about in the past, or you're worrying about in the future, or the thing that you're very uncomfortable with, that you couldn't say out loud, I think there's so much power in that, there's an immediate sense of relief."
Cotton says she'd be "in trouble" if she didn't go to therapy every week.
"I feel lucky I get to do it because it's not always accessible and it's expensive, but I really need that time to talk to someone about what's going on in my head and sift through all the obsessive thinking that I can get stuck in, and [the] negative thought loops".
Still says she's "a million times more confident than I was in my 20s – I'm perhaps learning the most about myself than I ever have."
When Cotton is feeling off balance, "I usually start to not like myself quite quickly. Like self loathing is never far away, so I have to really watch that…
"I start to look at the past and that becomes a bit obsessive, and my OCD kicks in. I might start getting into a bit of an obsessive thought loop, I do some of the more cliche things, like I have to check all the windows are locked and check the ovens are all turned off. But more so, it's the loops of thought that I get stuck in. The OCD is still on off, it's not debilitating."
To counteract and rebalance, she loves smaller social occasions. "I like really small dinners, like one-on-one with a mate or two mates. I love painting – it makes me feel absolute euphoria like nothing else, if the painting's gone well.
And even cleaning. "I love having my house really tidy. If it's a mess, I cannot cope with life. I have to have everything in its place, neat, with a candle on. I just need everything visually to be in place, so I feel like my head's not such a mess.
"I actually enjoy the process of doing that. Every morning, I get up, clean the kitchen before the kids get up, get their lunch boxes sorted or their snack boxes, do a couple of emails. I just like everything being in order. When everything gets a bit chaotic, I don't cope very well."
Walking helps, "which sounds so basic", she says, "but there's something about getting out of the house and not being trapped in it all – walking, getting a bit more perspective, seeing other humans.
"I'm constantly trying to recalibrate and work out what the best thing is in those moments. I know that yoga is going to suit me better than a HIIT workout." But like any working parent, she does "whatever I can fit in, because the mornings are just absolute chaos!"
"So many things you read, it's like, oh, just get up earlier, do half an hour of yoga, make a smoothie. Yeah, if you've got kids and a job… good luck with that one!"
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4 days ago
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