Zoe Ball to make BBC Radio 2 comeback after breakfast show departure
Ball will return to the airwaves for a Saturday afternoon slot from 1pm to 3pm.
Radio presenter Zoe Ball is returning to BBC Radio 2 four-and-a-half months after she left her breakfast show to “focus on family”.
The British DJ, 54, will interview comedian Roisin Conaty when she presents her first new show at 1pm on Saturday.
Ball, who was BBC Radio 2’s first female breakfast show host, took over the role from Chris Evans in January 2019.
She received messages from singer Kylie Minogue, England footballer Alessia Russo and Doctor Who star David Tennant when she said goodbye to her breakfast programme for the final time in December 2024.
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.
She then announced her decision to leave after almost six years in November 2024, saying it was time for her to “step away from the very early mornings and focus on family”.
That same month, 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 Norman Cook, known as Fatboy Slim, 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.
She presented a Saturday morning show on BBC Radio 2 from 2009 to 2012 and returned permanently to Radio 2 in 2017 as the host of the Saturday afternoon show, a role she held until she began hosting the breakfast show.
She also co-hosted Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast and BBC’s Saturday morning children’s magazine Live And Kicking, alongside Jamie Theakston for three years from 1996.
Ball will present her BBC Radio 2 show from 1pm to 3pm on Saturdays.
