Zoe Ball admitted mean listener comments can ‘get in her head’ as she opened up about starting her ‘scary’ new job at Greatest Hits Radio.
The radio host, 55, quit her BBC Radio 2 show last December after leaving the coveted Breakfast Show a year prior.
And now she has stepped into a new role, taking over from Kate Thornton for the weekday show from 1-4pm on Greatest Hits Radio.
After starting the job earlier this month, Zoe caught up with her friend Jo Wiley on the latest episode of their podcast Dig It as she explained she tries not to read comments as they can really ‘get in my head’.
‘Do you know what? I am really loving it,’ she told Jo. ‘It’s so scary starting a new job. Everybody will have been through this at some point in their lives.
‘When you’re the new girl and you’re going in and you’re following someone brilliant. I was following from Kate Thornton and Kate’s doing a new show at the weekends, but people don’t always like change.
‘I’m the same. I like the people I listen to and where they are. And when everything moves around, it can be a little bit discombobulating for everybody.’
Zoe Ball has said mean listener comments ‘get in her head’ as she reflected on her ‘scary’ new job at Greatest Hits Radio in the latest episode of Dig It podcast
She continued: ‘I know there will be comments. Of course, I try not to read the comments.
‘When you’re going to somewhere new there will be people who don’t necessarily choose to listen to you, whatever.
‘So, I just know not to read the comments because then they’ll get in my head and occasionally I’ll just see someone will say, “Oh, well, you’re being a bit mean.”
‘So you know someone is there saying something about not liking you and the rest of it.” But all I’ve done is I’ve seen that someone has responded to that and I’m like, “Right, don’t go any further.” It’s just like protecting yourself from that.’
Opening up about messing up live on air, Zoe said: ‘I had a really nerve-wracking first show, had a dangerously smooth second show, and then messed everything up on the third show. But you know what it’s like, isn’t it?
‘We all have good days and we have bad days. And there are days when you’re firing on all cylinders.
‘And then there are days that for no apparent reason you get everything wrong or you mess up or you’re late and do you know what? It evens out, you know, like not everyone is listening.’
After securing Hugh Jackman as her ‘dream first guest,’ she added: ‘He bought cakes, and he’s so charming, and he told a great story about nerves.
‘He told this great story about the first film he ever did. He starred alongside John Travolta and he went over to John’s and he wanted to run for the first couple of days scenes.
‘He said “Wow do you always do this?” and John Travolta said yeah because the first few days are so nerve-wracking and so even John Travolta gets nervous and worries and so does Hugh Jackman so you know a little bit of nerves helps with the excitement.
‘It’s difficult when you have a job where you have to speak and you actually get your words out because you’re so scared, but I’ve been well looked after.’
During her first show earlier this month, Zoe admitted that her ‘tongue is stuck in my teeth with nerves’, before adding that she was following advice and ‘breathing, I’m breathing’.
She began her show by telling listeners: ‘I can tell you excitement levels are currently peaking’ before thanking Ken Bruce, gushing that she was ‘so thrilled to be his radio neighbour once again’, whilst also paying tribute to ‘the mighty Simon Mayo. Adore him.’
Cementing her new era on commercial radio, Zoe also plugged her show’s partnership with BT before telling fans ‘I promise I am going to look after you all.’
Her first track was The Kiki Dee Band’s 1974 hit I’ve Got The Music In Me, paying tribute to the ‘true powerhouse women’ behind the song.
Promising that ‘we have lots of new things to introduce you’ Zoe said she would be continuing the station’s ‘time honoured tradition’ for the first hour and playing lunchtime anthems, declaring ‘boy they really do play the best tunes around here don’t they?’
Zoe teased her return to radio with an excited Instagram prior to the launch of her new show. Sharing a snap of Greatest Hits Radio branded microphones, she told her followers: ‘a new adventure begins’ before thanking her new team and gushing ‘I’m a lucky lass.’
The post, which she added the hashtags ‘new school, new girl and all the feels’ to, was met with plenty of encouragement from her celeb pals.
Sam Vaughan, the husband of her former BBC colleague Scott Mills, was among those to comment, writing: ‘Perfect afternoon soundtrack, we’ve got you on.’
Earlier this year Scott was sacked from the Radio 2 Breakfast Show, which he took over from Zoe, after it was discovered he had been the subject of allegations of ‘serious sexual offences’ against a teenage boy under 16.
Last year Zoe quit her £520k-a-year Radio 2 show amid a time of personal turmoil.
She later explained how she was struggling to cope with her grief after losing her mum to cancer in 2024, which combined with ‘crippling’ anxiety from perimenopause made her unable to make it through some of her shows.
The decision to step back from her Radio 2 afternoon show allowed her time to properly grieve the death of her mother, as well as spend time with daughter Nelly, who was going through her GCSEs at the time of her BBC exit.
