Fearne Cotton reveals she covers for Zoe Ball on BBC Radio 2
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BBC Radio 1 star Fearne Cotton has slammed cancel culture, branding it “toxic” while reflecting on her career at the broadcaster. In a new interview, the radio DJ, 40 examined the effect that cancel culture has had on the entertainment industry, branding the phenomenon a “toxic little b*****d”.
It’s harder because cancel culture exists, which is a horrible, toxic little b*****d
Fearne Cotton
Reflecting on her time as one of the last presenters of hit BBC show Top of the Pops, Fearne told Big Issue’s guest editor, musician Yungblud, that there has been a “shift” in how bands present themselves.
Looking back on how the music scene has changed since she hosted the show, Fearne branded it a “great time,” adding: “You could kind of do whatever you wanted back then.
“Lots of bands were quite wild and just completely themselves, essentially, without any media training, without anyone saying: ‘This is what is popular right now’.”
The star added that she recognised the change as she was leaving her role at the BBC, claiming there was a “shift” around this time.
The Happy Place Podcast host went on: “There was certainly a shift, maybe just as I was leaving Radio 1.
“It felt like it was getting trickier for artists to cultivate a space that was their own.
“I think culturally, it’s harder because cancel culture exists, which is a horrible, toxic little b*****d. I just can’t bear that,” she added.
Speaking about her time at the BBC before cancel culture took hold, Fearne added that people were “much more forgiving” back then, and she believes society needs to return to “that way of thinking”.
Last year, Fearne claimed that she “had” to step down as a DJ at Radio 1 in 2015, as it was “ruining her mind”.
Cotton spent 10 years fronting the station’s mid-morning show before deciding to leave in 2015 when she was pregnant with her second child.
The radio DJ, who currently has a show on Radio 2, has previously spoken about her mental health and bravely admitted that depression affected her “work confidence” while presenting her radio show.
But now, Fearne has claimed her 10-year presenting role was “ruining” her mental health, leading to her decision to leave the show.
Addressing her time at the radio broadcaster, she said: “I had to walk away because it was literally ruining my mind…..
“A lot of people still believe in this myth that people on TV or social media are these perfect people with perfect lives, and, of course, it’s all a load of b*****ks,” she told Red Magazine.
Speaking to Angela Scanlon on her Thanks A Million podcast earlier this year, the mother-of-two told how she felt “isolated” when her mental health was suffering.
Fearne said: “A lot of my work has come from that area of my life where I fell into a pretty big hole of depression and not much around me seemed to make sense.
“I felt very isolated and very alone in my experience. It was long before I even dared use the word depression…”
She went on to reveal that she was still working on a few things which have affected her over the years, and recently looked back at how it affected her career.
She explained: “One of them is confidence because I totally lost it when I didn’t have any at all, which has really hindered me in my work life and somewhat in my personal life…
“My working life, I really lost confidence… I literally couldn’t put myself out there in the way that I used to.”
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