‘Back once again with the ill behaviour’: Zoe Ball returns to BBC Radio 2

Radio presenter Zoe Ball has returned to BBC Radio 2 four-and-a-half months after she left her breakfast show on the channel, jokingly declaring she is “back once again with the ill behaviour”.

The 54-year-old previously left the station to “focus on family” and opened her new Saturday afternoon show with A Taste Of Honey’s Boogie Oogie Oogie.

Speaking at the start of the show, Ball said: “Well, hello … and welcome to the crazy, dysfunctional radio family cousin Joely D (Joel Dommett, who presented the show before Ball’s), he absolutely smashed it.

“It’s me Ballette, back once again with the ill behaviour.

“Should we kick off with this? Let’s get this show on the road, seat belts off, doors to manual.”

Ball’s opening remark was taken from Renegade Master by DJ Wildchild, which was remixed by her ex-husband Norman Cook, who is best known as Fatboy Slim, in 1998 when it reached number three on the UK singles chart.

As Booker T And The MGs’ Green Onions played in the background, Ball went on to ask if she still needed to do time checks on the afternoon show or whether “everyone is just so relaxed and laid back that we don’t even need those any more”.

She added: “It’s lovely to be back on a Saturday, this is where it all began for me, back in the day when I used to sweep up and make the teas, I used to do early mornings, and then I did the slot where Rylan is.

“In fact, I said to producer Geoff with a g, I went, ‘well, I’ll pop in then about two alright, and then we’ll run things through’, and he went, ‘halfway through your show, love, might want to come in a bit earlier than that’.

“I made it, I made it thanks to Geoff with a g’s daughter Emily, who made me a cake, it is absolutely magnificent, Emily.

“And, apparently, when Geoff with a g got home last night, she’d made one, wasn’t happy with it, made another, she made three cakes.

“Emily, you’re an absolute queen, thank you very much indeed.

“See Nelly, my daughter, who was out at a rave on the beach last night, that’s what you could be doing, clean living life, thank you very much.”

The British DJ, who is the daughter of former Play School presenter Johnny Ball, will interview comedian Roisin Conaty on the show.

When saying goodbye to her breakfast show for the final time in December 2024, she received messages from singer Kylie Minogue, England footballer Alessia Russo and Doctor Who star David Tennant.

Former Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills took over her slot in January 2025 and his previous weekday slot of 2pm to 4pm has been filled by Trevor Nelson.

Ball took a break from hosting The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show in the summer of 2024, returning in September.

After making the decision to leave in November, she revealed she wakes up most days with “awful headaches” due to a health condition that causes pain in the jaw joint and surrounding muscles.

She said she had a temporomandibular (TMJ) joint disorder, which affects the movement of the jaw, according to the NHS.

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 2024.

She was previously married to musician and DJ Cook, and the pair have two children together: a son, Woody Fred Cook, born in 2000, and a daughter, Nelly May Lois Cook, who was born in 2010.

Ball was the first woman to present the BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show solo when her co-host Kevin Greening left the show in 1998.

She departed the role in 2000 and went on to become the first permanent female breakfast show host at BBC Radio 2 almost 19 years later.

Ball will present her new BBC Radio 2 show from 1pm to 3pm on Saturdays.