Gemma Cairney: “We need mischief in our lives” Sisterhood and challenging the status quo

How do you find joy in the darkest of times? Broadcaster, writer and DJ Gemma Cairney has some ideas. She joins Fearne in the Happy Place studio to talk about sisterhood, shame and subverting the status quo. Fearne and Gemma go way back. From their heady days on Radio 1, to trudging through the fields of Glastonbury, they reflect on the industry that tried to mould them as young women. Gemma opens up about growth, the messiness of the human experience and the beauty we should see in the world around us - even if it is intense and terrifying. Plus, she shares more about the women in her imagined sisterhood, from Erykah Badu to Marsha P. Johnson, and the bottle of wine she shared with her hero, Grace Jones. Gemma’s book, The Immortal Sisterhood: 12 Guiding Stars to Grow, Heal and Navigate Life, is available now in paperback. We'd love to hear from you - email Fearne at [email protected] mailto:[email protected] If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you might also like: Miquita Oliver https://pod.fo/e/65f41a Phillipa Perry https://pod.fo/e/401e76 Ashley Roberts https://pod.fo/e/42a86e Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Fearne Cotton?

  Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show that explores life's changes. Today, I'm chatting to the wonderful Gemma Kearney.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  We should be embracing the language of healing. Aren't we always healing from so much? The world is intense and terrifying, but it's also really, really beautiful.

• 0:25Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  Like so beautiful. And beautiful is not meant to be perfect.

• 0:30Fearne Cotton?

  No. Gemma is a broadcaster, writer and DJ, and we go way back, which meant we had an awful lot to talk about. Obviously, one of the things we have in common is growing up in the presenting culture. We felt, I think, both slightly infantilised during the kids TV bit. You're often pressurised to stay young and youthful and relevant. And that's something we both had quite a lot to say about. Also, the pressures to talk and look a certain way and the huge impact it has on your self-worth. We definitely had that in common too. We also talk about Gemma's relationship with Caroline Flack and the fact that very little has changed since her death,

• 1:12Fearne Cotton?

  which makes me feel livid and upset. And I know for her, there's a lot of personal grief that comes with that subject matter too. So we've got a lot to talk about in terms of that. Also Grace Jones, who is someone that Gemma had dinner with. It's a great story and she's got a lot to say about how Grace has influenced her and impacted her over the years too. And also the vulnerability of going back to work postpartum. When we sat down to have this chat, Gemma had literally given birth like a couple of months before. And the juggle, well, it's always very real, but it was certainly very real during our chat. So we discussed getting back to work straight after having a baby and the complexities of that.

• 3:33Fearne Cotton?

  Gemma Kearney, I am so happy to see you. I mean, we've been in each other's orbit for years.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  So long. How has this happened? How have we got so old?

• 3:45Fearne Cotton?

  I know. I'm 45.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  I can't believe it. Honestly, I'm like, I still feel like I'm emerging all the time.

• 3:51Fearne Cotton?

  Same.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  And then suddenly it's like, no, we are these like wise.

• 3:56Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, crones.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Literally.

• 3:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm going to go with the wise, but it's definitely.

• 4:02Fearne Cotton?

  Cron I'm reimagining as something very witchy and wise. And we're moving into that era.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  And it feels good. I'm pleased because over the years, there's been a lot.

• 4:11Fearne Cotton?

  It has. I mean, we have done all sorts together over the years, from presenting stuff to trudging through the fields of Glastonbury, to being stuck in sorts of like weird corporate spaces that we feel are very jarring to us. We've sort of been amongst it, but I don't suppose we've ever sat down like this and chatted about all of it and more.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Wow. It feels big actually.

• 4:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel quite emotional because we're around the corner from where we first met.

• 4:38Fearne Cotton?

  We are, the BBC.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Actually, I think I might have met you when you were, we were both really young in one of your first jobs, because I went for a CBBC programme, like a presenter job. And I must have been like still a child and it was like you were already the presenter of the show. What was one of the first shows that you did?

• 4:59Fearne Cotton?

  Well, the first lot were on ITV and then I moved to the BBC when I think I was 19.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 5:04Fearne Cotton?

  And I did some of the like talking in between TV shows, like the Prez stuff with Jake and Angelica. And I can't think who else was in that cohort, because there was like a brand new CBBC wave. I can't think what other shows.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  I can't remember.

• 5:21Fearne Cotton?

  The Saturday show or something like that.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  It was a weekend thing and I remember going with my mum and being like, oh my goodness, that's Fern Cotton. She's so cool.

• 5:29Fearne Cotton?

  How funny.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  I didn't get the job, but you know.

• 5:31Fearne Cotton?

  It's so crazy. I mean, it's such an interesting thing to sort of look back on our other worlds that we inhabited. Like that career feels to me like a million years ago. And I'm sure you feel the same in ways that we're very different people today. Luckily, there is now the space to have a bit more autonomy, like to do what you want to do, create the sort of programming or content or write brilliant books, and we'll get to your book in a bit, that you want to write. Back then, that wasn't really available. We were kind of told to dress in a certain way, stand on this spot, read these words, be a sort of person that will be palatable to as many as possible. And I mean, where do we begin with that one?

• 6:15Fearne Cotton?

  That impacts you in a plethora of ways. How do you think that that career impacted you?

• 6:20Speaker 01

  I think that was part of culture. I think if you were a girl or a woman then, then you were supposed to be palatable.

• 6:29Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  And then suddenly that became hyperbolic by the jobs that we chose. And nobody necessarily warned us because we were really young. And I don't know if a kind of everyday person such as our like caregivers, like our parents, whatever, would have even have known.

• 6:49Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  I mean, certainly bosses and managers and that kind of whole kind of pyramid of hierarchy in the entertainment industry, like aren't letting you know when you get these jobs, that actually emotionally or societally or media wise, they could be quite difficult or challenging. I think the idea was that this was going to be the dream and that you were really, really lucky to get any of those jobs without anything negative at all.

• 7:24Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  But at the same time, I think that culture was like that for so many of us. And I think there was such a gloss, a beautiful hypnotic gloss. Magazines were still around, so I definitely grew up buying Bliss magazine, Miz.

• 7:42Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, Miz.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Sugar.

• 7:44Fearne Cotton?

  Sugar, you get a free lip gloss on the front.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 7:46Fearne Cotton?

  Obsessed.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  And you see your heroes. And you didn't think about all this stuff that became more and more prevalent, not only like in our own lives, because we were sort of going down those routes.

• 8:01Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  But also the impact on everybody. So like, we didn't know that airbrushing existed.

• 8:08Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  No. Or that there was a trend for a heroin chic body. Like what?

• 8:16Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  So there was this kind of like invisible impact that had already started. And that was society and that was culture and that was the industry side of entertainment. And then suddenly you're learning on the job. And I just really wish, because I started properly when I was 23. I definitely had wanted to be a presenter before that. Like I said, like I went for jobs when I was a teenager. But I wish that somebody or a group, an organised collective or something, was around to be able to nurture us a little bit as young women

• 8:58Speaker 01

  in a really quiet, big, very patriarchal machine.

• 9:03Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  And I'd had quite a, I say trouble, but I don't really like that word, but I'd had a really. Also maybe slightly tumultuous childhood for various reasons. And I think that I thought that getting into um my job would create a sense of family.

• 9:23Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Um, because when you put on the T V or you put on the radio, everyone's having a laugh and everybody's being really nice to each other and fun. And you get this sense of camaraderie. And I think that I thought, oh, wow, like, everything will be complete.

• 9:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. Do you know what? I think out of the thousands of people that I've interviewed over the years, in this capacity or otherwise.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 9:45Fearne Cotton?

  There is such a common thread of, and you know, this is applicable to people that don't just wanna end up in a job like this. But like, any job that looks shiny and whatever over here, that we go into it. And there is a part of us hoping that it will fix those bits of us that we don't like, that we're uncomfortable with, that it can rewrite the past. I think, I I think pretty much everyone I've interviewed has had a level of that, like, this is gonna complete me. And I thought that until, like, probably not that long ago, like, in my thirties, I was definitely still of that thinking, like, if I could just get to this point or this level of presenting or whatever, then I'll feel okay. And it's only been probably the last five years that I've thought, that is a load of old shit.

• 10:30Fearne Cotton?

  I'm not gonna get any of that from any level of outside validation or seal of approval from a T V company. I've got to do that for myself. But we were so young, of course, we're gonna seek that.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  And there's just so many levels in the game of it all, where there is no duty of care for us to be able to come up with those revelations or breakthroughs.

• 10:53Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Like, it kind of is on us to have these conversations, to try and unpick and work out, like, where that went wrong. And some of it is infantilisation, like, I think.

• 11:03Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  The whole idea was that we were supposed to stay young, relevant. And in some ways, that also means quite naive.

• 11:09Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  And.

• 11:11Fearne Cotton?

  Cause you're malleable then, I guess.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  One hundred percent.

• 11:13Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm. I agree. And I think I've had conversations recently, like, one of them being with Makita, which has been like a deeply healing experience for both of us. And the thing that I'm realising more and more is for nearly all of us who were growing up in that sort of culture.

• 11:30Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 11:30Fearne Cotton?

  And I think this bleeds into, like, everyday society, the people listening to our radio shows, watching us on T V, reading uh toxic articles about women in the news, in the news and newspapers. Is that all of us were making so many assumptions about each other, whether we got on or didn't get on with each other. We had these assumptions like, well, well, they're nailing it, they're doing all right, they feel, they look like they feel really at home in this space. Whereas I think most of us were going, like, panicking internally, like, uh, am I the only one that feels like I don't belong here? Am I the only one that feels like I'm being picked on by the press or? But all of us were feeling that.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:06Fearne Cotton?

  That's the revelation to me at this point in my life. Not a single person got away with like, yeah, I feel invincible and I'm nailing it.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Oh, my god, no. And if they did, I would really like to know who they were.

• 12:16Fearne Cotton?

  They don't exist. No one got away with, you know, even like.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  And that's actually applicable to men as well, isn't it?

• 12:23Fearne Cotton?

  When I had Ann and Dec sat here, I was like, do you feel like you're successful, like, you've made it? And they're like, hmm, it's like, but you have.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  They're Ann and Dec, come on.

• 12:35Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. It's so interesting. And I think I even asked Dec, something along the lines of, do you, do you think you know who you are today? And he was like, I I'm not sure. And I think we make all these assumptions, and certainly back then, where it was all hearsay, you know. So and so's got this job, so and so has been sacked from this, or whatever it might be. And we were making up all of these stories. And it's only now, we're all in our sort of forties, fifties, that we're going, wait, should we just talk about the reality of what that felt like? And and how it impacted us. I mean, as you just said, there was this sort of toxic cultural thing going on with certainly body image, like what body shape we had.

• 13:16Fearne Cotton?

  And that personally impacted me in a horrible way. Um, but there were so many other toxic traits that we were aware of with how the press talked about us. The pressure from T V bosses, companies for us to be a certain way, to be likeable. And we were explicitly told these things. I mean, you, in in your beautiful book, and I wanna talk about the the the beautiful sort of magic and witchery bit in a moment. But the the real life stories you included, the immortal sisterhood, one of them is a horror story of you saying, you were you were brought into a meeting. And there was your name in the centre of a bit of paper and then descriptive words around you, um, trying to sort of condense who you were as a person to the public. Like, that's not normal to go through.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah, I didn't know that I was even gonna be receiving that particular process either. I'd been asked into a meeting. Um, with management, having just moved to a really big radio station. So I was still really open to critique and producing something that felt right for this new station. And um I went to this meeting and didn't know what it was about. And there'd been some market research about me and my new show. And then to present this, there'd been this kind of weird graph created where my name was in the middle, as you described. And then words that had come up from some kind of market research conversation, and all of them were negative.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  And it was just like bigger words for like what came up more. And I just remember seeing like annoying, like in massive capital letters, and then there was loud and stupid and all sorts of like, really quite upsetting words. And I was, uh, I was actually really shocked and really flummoxed. And I think that the person that delivered that information, I don't know whether they'd been told to or or or what the reasoning behind it was as a process. But I thought, is this what every presenter's going through? And I've not heard anyone go through that. I haven't heard anyone. And um, uh, I was just so flummoxed. I didn't have words.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  I think that the thought was that maybe I would be really angry. And actually, I was just so shocked. And then I remember saying at the end of this whole experience, I said, well, what can I do to be better, to make the show better? Because actually, I see my job as a craft. And I think that one of the reasons why we've continued is because we're really highly skilled and we've learnt our craft.

• 15:53Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Um, so I wanted to be better. So I was like, what can I do? And then um, the person that delivered it said, well, um, maybe you could like laugh less.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  And looking back, thinking about the language, I understand that whole experience to be. Um, hmm, quite dehumanising, to be completely honest.

• 16:21Fearne Cotton?

  Very dehumanising.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  And I know our job is that we are sometimes puppets. Sometimes we are. But we are, we love people, which is why we talk to people, we have audiences on a radio show, et cetera. Um, and I love my craft. So to hear that actually joy. Um, and like the verbotity of joy, which I think I like to bring, I like to bring from a really true space of from me. Like, I have a lot of heart for my work and for communication. That was the problem and why people found me so annoying.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  It was really affecting, but there wasn't time to process stuff then. I was so busy. I was working like early mornings. I was going to meetings all of the time. I was exhausted. I was like trying to like look after myself, but not doing it very well at all. And um, I I'd just been told by authority that in order to do my job well and and, you know, like all these connotations of keeping it. We never knew what new show we were gonna get or anything. Like, we did, you just get a phone call being like, right, we're changing your whole life.

• 17:32Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your time slot, if you're, if you have the job or not, you know, I think all of us did feel particularly disposable, like this could go tomorrow. I still feel like that a lot, even though I've tried to create my own ecosystem or I can't get sacked. I think you still have that feeling of, is this gonna stop tomorrow? Like, you never, and that, cause that was the culture. And, you know, I I didn't necessarily have the exact process of having my name and words around it. But I've been told all sorts of things about myself from, and I'm not talking about people that in like the general public. I'm talking about bosses that you think, well, I should take this seriously, I should respect it, about whether, like, I think someone once did a bar graph of like where my profile was at.

• 18:14Fearne Cotton?

  And it had really dipped. And I was like, is, does that mean I'm like not valuable? Like, what does that equate to within myself? I'm not a product, I'm not a machine. How does that impact who I am as? Cause this is our personalities being dissected. And I've certainly been told, I can remember like back on kids' T V, cause this shit sticks in your head, that I was um giving too much to the camera and to hold stuff back. And I was like, oh, I was just being me, like, what is that? So you do start to become, I think, actually slightly paranoid about how you're coming across.

• 18:51Fearne Cotton?

  And I wonder if this happened for you, cause it certainly has for me until, again, in the last sort of two years, I've really shifted everything in my life and looked at how all of this shit's impacted me. But that started to seep into my everyday interactions. So I would be paranoid leaving, uh, having a coffee with a friend or meeting up with people that I knew very well, like, was I, did I talk too much? Was I too much? Because it does set in as some sort of mental paranoia, I think.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  I think that's really interesting. I have never framed it necessarily as paranoia, but almost definitely that would have, it got into my psyche.

• 19:30Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Definitely. And um, I think I just became like quite escapist of like the reality. It's just like, then you just, I just. Then I just, you can easily start to play a character, basically. I could be a caricature because then that isn't really me who they're judging. If that makes sense.

• 19:50Fearne Cotton?

  Yep, I did it too.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that I think that that's how.

• 19:53Fearne Cotton?

  That's your suit of armour.

• 19:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, and like I look back at some stuff and I'm like, I was a bit of a professional clown. But when you think about it from this perspective of emotionality and growing up before everybody and like feeling insecure, then it's like, it's the sad clown. But it's like, as long as I'm entertaining everybody and as long as I'm like at everything and like wearing the like most ridiculous outfit at the party and the most fun and being really silly and mischievous at the Brit Awards because I'm so lucky to be here, I'm so lucky to be here.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it manifested in like someone that wasn't necessarily me, but trying to wear this armour, like metaphorically.

• 20:43Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  By being like quite, like even more over the top, like in a sort of rebellion.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  And then I did also like create really close friendships with just a few people in the industry. And, and one of them being Caroline Flack, who, you know, we no longer like have in this world because of the impact of scrutiny.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  And many other reasons, but that's definitely one of them.

• 21:19Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  And it's just, um, on reflection, so deep and way more serious than I think is portrayed.

• 21:33Fearne Cotton?

  Agreed.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Um, as, you know, everyone's been sort of rolled out to be judged.

• 21:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  And it's like a bit of banter and a bit of a laugh to troll someone on Twitter or to comment on a picture that you've seen of them in the newspaper. And actually, when I was writing The Immortal Sisterhood, the depth was allowed to be there because the practice of writing kind of helps me process it and just like really trying to work out like what I can do from a perspective of the now, you know? Not just be stuck in this space of like, that's so sad, I'm upset by that, that's really not okay. It's like, how do we move forward, even in grief?

• 22:15Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  And realisation and it's like, there's a part of the book where there's actually a call to arms for all of us to really become perhaps more gentle or human or of heart when it comes to how we judge each other.

• 22:33Fearne Cotton?

  Hugely, so hugely, I completely agree with you because I think, you know, although I have talked about, um, the impact of like being in the public eye a, a fair bit, I still sometimes hold back in terms of expressing how severe that's felt because the, uh, response usually is, well, you chose to do this job or that's just part of being famous or like whatever, I don't, famous isn't my job. That's just like this weird thing that's come along with a job that I started way before social media, way before YouTube, way before all of that out of control exposure started to happen to all of us. And you're absolutely right to pinpoint what happened to Caroline.

• 23:18Fearne Cotton?

  And I think, you know, I wasn't as close a friend as you were, but obviously I like in a similar way to seeing you, I would see her constantly at work events, we were orbiting each other constantly. We're all still slightly shell shocked from that happening. And to see, that's how bad it can be, that's how bad it gets. And when I look at my like absolute black hole, which was sort of beginning in my thirties, it was so dreadful and I gaslit myself time and time again. So I was like, you can't complain, you can't moan, you have the dream job. It's the dream job, you mustn't moan, you mustn't complain. And therefore you put up with actually at times outright bullying.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:57Fearne Cotton?

  Outright bullying, people just saying nasty shit about someone they don't know. And, and I, you know, I'm, I'm so gutted that Caroline's not here and I'm so sad that you lost such a great friend because of something so dreadful that is culturally the norm, that you're just allowed to slag people off that you don't know.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think the normalisation of that intensity is the thing that we all need to like unpick to make sure that that doesn't happen again, which feels ridiculous to say because actually it has happened again recently in different circles. But if you think about Professor Jason Arday.

• 24:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  It's happened again.

• 24:39Fearne Cotton?

  I don't think anything's changed, if I'm honest with you, since Caroline died. It felt at the time like this is gonna have a huge shift in terms of how the press deal with stories or human beings. I don't think much has changed.

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  I'm Jordan North.

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• 26:10Fearne Cotton?

  So the absolute opposite of what we've just talked about, that sort of level of scrutiny, where it takes you mentally, how you start to kind of wear a straitjacket because that's expected of you, that you will remain in these confines. The antithesis of that is this book.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you for saying.

• 26:28Fearne Cotton?

  It is, I picked up this beautiful book you've written, The Immortal Sisterhood. And, you know, even from looking at the cover, I was like, this is so up my street. But reading it, it feels like you have been completely allowed by your publishers to just write whatever the hell you wanted. There are no rules, there's no, this is what's selling right now, this is how, this is what's gonna be selling currently, this is the trend. You have put your absolute heart and soul and this sort of feeling of, I got a feeling from this book, which I think is really special, of like female wildness. And the type of wildness that we're told is unsavoury, that should be put a cap on,

• 27:11Fearne Cotton?

  like this is how a woman should behave, you know, in society. You've just literally blown the lid off it and it feels wild, it feels wild to read.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 27:22Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, it made me so excited reading it because I still think I have, I can have hangovers from the past and be like, oh, don't say that, or don't do that, or don't wear that, or people might think you meant that if you said this. And your book was like, fuck that, fuck that, like embrace that wildness. And there's this beautiful premise that you've put in place, which is choosing your own sisterhood. And, and the sisterhood that you've created is made up of women, some who died hundreds of years ago, some who are still alive today, people that we know, but also people that have been actually erased from history, not just forgotten, but certainly powerful women that have massively had an impact on you and inspired you in every way, your working

• 28:07Fearne Cotton?

  life, your creative life, your emotional life. I think that's a really beautiful thing that all of us can go and do is like write a list of people that we may have never met them, but that means something to us as women.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Creating the Immortal Sisterhood has been one of the best things I've ever done because I've created this fellowship of imaginary friends.

• 28:29Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  I have met one of them and she is the living sister, Grace Jones, and she did change my life in that discourse. Cause again, aren't we lucky in the sense that we get to speak to so many people? And we do meet our heroes or at least people that are potentially gonna be our heroes.

• 28:47Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  And so that's why I thought it was really important to include Grace because she just had this vibe to her that made me feel like it's gonna be okay if I wanna be myself.

• 28:58Fearne Cotton?

  So look, I, cause you, you write about this in the book, but we need to hear about that day because it's a huge thing. When you meet someone that you admire and it's not just, oh, I like their music, it's everything about what she stands for, her history, her life story. And then all of a sudden you're sat opposite her at a, a table. How was that?

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Oh, I loved it. And actually you saying about this feeling of wildness and freedom, um, she offers that in her presence. And I think that we're in a time where we over prepare, we over brief, it's like, what's the brief? Or like, what's the data? How many numbers? You know, like, it's not actually an exchange. And, um, I wanted Grace Jones to know because she's also really hard to get hold of and had only said yes to this particular interview, um, that I respected her and that I wasn't trying to extract anything from her or turn her into a caricature.

• 30:00Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Um, so at the beginning of the interview, which we did over dinner, which was her request.

• 30:07Fearne Cotton?

  Could you even eat? I'd be so nervous, I'd be like, dry mouth.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Honestly, though, even like with wine, she started pouring like out her wine and then goes to fill my glass and I was like, I'm working, I don't usually, and she was like, darling.

• 30:21Fearne Cotton?

  Have the wine.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  It's like white before, what did she say? White to be alright and red before bed.

• 30:27Fearne Cotton?

  Have um. Put that on a T-shirt.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Right, and I'm like, well, of course I'll have the Sancerre with you. My goodness, queen. Um, but I said to her at the beginning, I said, look, I just want you to know, I, I want to create a piece of archive that respects you as the feminist icon that you are. So you know. And that's how we started. And she looked at me, she didn't say anything, she just looked at me. And um, yeah, the ancestors spoke.

• 30:56Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  And it was like, okay, cool, let's go.

• 30:59Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  And um, it was just beautiful and she was so generous in her fabulousness, which I think is rare as a quality. Um, and oh my god, just like, took me places with her stories, like telling me like, how Andy Warhol used to dance in the club, just, you know, literally like mimicking his moves. And at one point, I just kept being like, tell me more about Studio 54, I need to know more, I need to know more. What did it smell like? And then she started laughing, she's like, darling, you're just like my son's friends, like. She's like, have your own party.

• 31:33Fearne Cotton?

  Love it.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  And I was like, I just had permission from Grace Jones to have my own party.

• 31:41Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  And like, I took that seriously, I was like, okay.

• 31:44Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 31:44Speaker 01

  Like, this cultivation of self, and she is art, she's walking art, um, unapologetically so, uh, and you know, and now she's doing that in her seventies.

• 31:57Fearne Cotton?

  There's this weird thing, I think, also in like, um, British culture. And it's actually very sad that we, that we do this, because other cultures absolutely don't do this. That we disregard any wisdom that elders might have to pass on. And we just go, old people.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  I know.

• 32:15Fearne Cotton?

  Old people. And then you go to other cultures, Mexico being a big one, where the word elders is this, you're a revered person who has not only stories to pass down, but also methods that have been used to help people heal, or help people postpartum, or whatever it might be.

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:32Fearne Cotton?

  We've sort of lost that. So I think to sit with someone like Grace Jones, or to sit with someone that has achieved amazing things, or has acquired a bunch of knowledge, listen to them, like sit and, like, what a gift that is.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  One hundred percent, one hundred percent. I, I loved that interview, I loved that experience. And I wanted to honour her and revere her. And actually, when I was making The Sisterhood Live with other artists, we kept trying to encapsulate in words, like, what is it that we're doing? What is this method? And when we realised that actually, like, our ancestors, all of our ancestors, would have told stories in such ways with their bodies, and you like invoke spirit, and you say thank you, and it like became so ancient and within our humanity, that was like way beyond this modern expectation.

• 33:27Fearne Cotton?

  The thing that I really took from it, from each of these people, and a lot of the women that you write about, I had not heard of. And I was so interested to learn about them, what their craft was, the hurdles that they'd overcome. And it seems like, like the feeling of the book and the storytelling from these women, to me, it seems to dismantle the shame that women carry. Most of us, um, carry a level of shame, and we're not even aware of it. And it's the shame that our body doesn't look a certain way, it's the shame that we are aging when we're not supposed to. It's the shame that we've done something that wasn't very gracious or ladylike, it's

• 34:09Fearne Cotton?

  the shame of, we fucked up and we're not perfect like we're supposed to be. We're, we're all dealing with that. And the women that you talk about have just not gone there. They're like, I'm not gonna, I don't deal in shame. I'm going to be myself and people will judge me and people will project onto me what they think I should or shouldn't be doing. And that for me was the feeling, when I put, turned the last page, I was like, that there was a liberation, like a freeness, of I'm not dealing in shame anymore, I'm not dealing with it. Yeah, I think especially, you know, for women of our age, we, I'm a little bit older than you, but we're in our forties. And I think you get to a point where that shame's very noticeable.

• 34:51Fearne Cotton?

  And like, as young women, you're really shamed when it comes to your body and sex. Like, there are two things where it's like, you must behave in a certain way. And it, and it creates this tension and this tightness. And I think you get into your forties and you wanna free yourself from those shackles and just be like, I'm not gonna think of my body, or my sexuality, or anything that comes along with it, with shame anywhere near it.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. I love that, because then we are in our power.

• 35:19Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  And I mean that from like a true space of like magic.

• 35:23Fearne Cotton?

  Not an Elon Musk power.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  No, it's like a magic, it's then we become nature, because actually, when we're not in shame, we are able to do the most profound things.

• 35:37Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  And presenting this collection and then thinking about how it exists in our everyday lives, like, we are alchemising, like this thought that we deserve to be in shame for some things that are way beyond us. Some of this shame has been either inherited, or it's like been put on us by like this expectation, which is like way beyond anything that was our birthright, which is to actually just live and be ourselves. And I'm, let's be honest, like, if we identify as women, then we are embracing such mess as much as we are this idea of perfectionism, or uh, the divine kind of power of a woman

• 36:23Speaker 01

  who can be in her sexuality and full of pleasure. I think, I mean, I'm seven weeks postpartum when we record this, for my second, you know, with my second child. This is the first day that I've been away from my little boy, uh, and I was just like, oh my goodness, what if I start lactating?

• 36:42Fearne Cotton?

  You could lactate, you could literally squirt milk at me, and I'm gonna be like, come on, bring it on. Bring it on. If you're gonna lactate, this is the place to do it.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Okay, thank you, Fern, thank you, I appreciate it.

• 36:55Fearne Cotton?

  But there's something quite magical in, in that sort of power of way you're talking about. When you've just had a baby, and you have just had a baby.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:05Fearne Cotton?

  Where your body feels, I mean, obviously you're going through all sorts of things, and everyone's experience will be entirely different.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:12Fearne Cotton?

  But there is this feeling of like, I'm fucking invincible.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:16Fearne Cotton?

  I've just grown a baby.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  It's amazing.

• 37:19Fearne Cotton?

  Amazing. And I'm so fucking sick of us talking about like culture, I'm talking about us.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:26Fearne Cotton?

  Like culturally, like the discussion around like mums, or like being mumzy, or like what that means, it's like, being a mum is absolutely wild, it's the wildest thing

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 37:40Fearne Cotton?

  out there. It's not all pushing buggies and going to monkey music and whatever, and all like the, the mumzy stuff that we're kind of, again, made to feel shame about, that like, oh, I've lost my identity, blah, blah. It is the wildest time to be embraced.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  I don't know if you've heard of the book Matressence?

• 37:59Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  So, oh, I'll definitely send that to you. Um, uh, Lucy Jones is a writer that writes really beautifully about finding nature and the change within women when they have children. And matressence is an actual time period of a mother's brain, which happens before birth and continues after birth, where it's been scientifically proven that our brains actually change. So we do change on the inside and on the out. And what that means for us in terms of a sense of empowerment is that actually, maybe we do become more at one, you know, with each other and um, with our wildness.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  You know, that idea of being feral and responding to things in our environment, from a place of pride and protection, in the same way that like the matriarch protects. And then I think in a industry lens is that that change can be commodified quite easily, because actually, I would say, here I am, seven weeks postpartum, I'm quite raw, I'm like quite vulnerable. So if I'm on Instagram doom scrolling, which I can find myself doing.

• 39:12Fearne Cotton?

  We all do it.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Then I might feel a bit guilty that I'm like not with my newborn today, that I'm here, like, talking about my book and working, you know, or um, I'm worried about, like, I've got a two-year-old as well, so I've got two little ones, so they're taking up so much of my, my body and mind. It's really easy to feel like you need to be doing it a certain way when you're advertised at. Um, whereas actually, I'm raw, I'm real, there's been a lot of change, I'm pretty excited about that. I'm quite tired and lucid. That helps with poetry.

• 39:54Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it can be a really creative space.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Like writing and having this project which means so much to me, and also is this tangible, physical, you know, thing that's been created from all of these changes, and falling in love and thinking about loss and embracing and becoming and always becoming, which is what I realise really, is that we're always in this flow. We are like these tidal beings, um, is to be celebrated, and then if not, like, have a cry and a sleep.

• 40:27Fearne Cotton?

  Exactly. Like, I think that's the point, is when you're, when you're tidal, like you're growing, you're emerging, things are changing. It's not, I think we're in such a, a culture where it's like, uh, keep ascending, and then you reach the top and everything is great. And it's like, the whole thing is messy and undulating, and growth is really painful at times, and you've got to let go of things, or people, or places, or whatever it might be. But growing is where it's at, like that forward momentum, and it's not an ascent upwards, it's just you're expanding and you're willing to learn and keep growing. And that again is the feeling I got from this book, it's not this perfect linear, here are five steps and you can be the best version of yourself. Fuck off.

• 41:09Fearne Cotton?

  Like, what is the best version of yourself? It's utter nonsense, utter shit. Like, I could be, you know, fucking knackered tomorrow and do a shit job at work, and the next day, be pretty decent because I've slept well or whatever, like, all that optimisation shit, put it in the fucking bin, like whatevs.

• 41:26Speaker 01

  It's terrifying, it's, it makes the, the human experience really rigid.

• 41:30Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  That's just not what's going on. Like, what's actually going on is like lactating, a C-section scar, like, I can put nice clothes on top of it, but the truth is the truth, and, and it will always be changing. And actually, it's, if you're thinking about healing.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  And moving through and moving on and trying to be excited about a future. Um, we, we, we should be embracing like the language of healing, like, aren't we always healing?

• 42:03Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  From so much, the world is intense and terrifying, but it's also really, really beautiful.

• 42:13Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  Like so beautiful.

• 42:15Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  And beautiful is not meant to be perfect.

• 42:18Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Um, and I just, I just get so like giddy when I think about that.

• 42:26Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  So that's what I try to like do with my own choices. It's like, why I'm here, why I wrote this book? Why I'm so happy to speak to you, like, why your response, you know, speaking about that wildness erupting? I just think it's so exciting.

• 42:44Fearne Cotton?

  It is so exciting.

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• 44:29Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, as you just said there, the more you heal from whatever you've been through, and it's not like the suffering Olympics. It doesn't matter how bad or whatever, whatever you've been through, things that have impacted you negatively that you know you need to heal from. My experience, and I would say what I again saw very much in the storytelling from your perspective is the more you heal, the more you can be utterly yourself.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:56Fearne Cotton?

  And authenticity can't be like pinned down to it's this, it's just a feeling that you have that you're comfy in your skin. You can show up as yourself on any given day. And a way to be inspired is obviously by other people. And you ask the direct question to the reader of the book, you say, um, who first told you that you were allowed to subvert the status quo? And that's really cool because we can probably look back to whether it's, it was someone at school who was just like dressing a bit differently. Or it could be a pop star that we loved that really spoke to us. Or it could be a friend down the line that you just saw being so themselves that that they gave you permission

• 45:40Fearne Cotton?

  to simply be you without hiding parts of yourself that you don't like, without putting on a show for people. Like all the stuff that we, we do. So we like rub along with other people well.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 45:52Fearne Cotton?

  Who, would you say, is there one person for you that, that did that?

• 45:56Speaker 01

  Um, I definitely felt illuminated to something different when I first heard Erykah Badu.

• 46:04Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  I was just like, wait a minute. You could just go to another realm.

• 46:11Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  Um, that's very cool. Uh, her whole earth mother aesthetic and sound and the way that she uses lyrics, which are kind of poetry in spells, I think. You know, sometimes it just didn't even make sense. Like she would like mash up different words and make like a line in a song. And you'd sing along with it because it was so melodic. And then all these years later, I'm just like, oh my God, that's actually genius.

• 46:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it's got a whole new meaning.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I just used to love listening to Erykah Badu and feel like at home for some reason that I didn't even really know why. So that was probably when I was about 18, I found Erykah Badu when the Mama's Gone album was out. And then I've seen her live so many times now and seen all the different collaborations that she does. And I think, I think she was 50 when she brought out a music video, or at least in her 50s, where she walks down the street completely naked and she's got cellulite and she's just like, she's curvy and amazing. And I think the police try and stop her.

• 47:18Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  I was watching that as quite a young woman, again, who was still in these constraints of thinking about body image and what the perfect body was. And then suddenly like my idol was doing that, this act of like punkery.

• 47:34Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  And not giving a shit. And you just think, yeah, so Badu's definitely up there. There's so many.

• 47:41Fearne Cotton?

  Well, there are people in your.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  What about you? What about you?

• 47:43Fearne Cotton?

  Well, I thought about this when I read the book and I was, I was sort of fortunate in a way, I didn't know it was actually happening. That like, say like my mum and my auntie, they're sisters, they've always sort of like subverted the status quo. Without me realising that's what they were doing. Like, you know, my auntie, she's always dressed in her totally unique way. So she would go on the school run and she had like a purple car, she'd have a cape on.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  Love this.

• 48:09Fearne Cotton?

  Like the whole thing. And then like she came to the Happy Place Festival just recently and her bag is a clock that actually fucking works.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 48:17Fearne Cotton?

  A top hat on and like, you know, just nuts.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:19Fearne Cotton?

  And my mum's always been like a very colourful dresser. She'll, you know, she'll come for tea and she's wearing pleather leggings and a faux fur, something that's bright orange and like just all a bit out there. So it wasn't like they were like rebelling against the status quo in any sort of like huge way. But visually, it was like, you don't look like other mums on the school run. And that feels, I don't know, it was my norm back then, but I think now I'm like, I really love that they've definitely shown me and my cousins, that you can just go, I'm gonna wear whatever the fuck I want, which I think is a big statement to people, how you show up, what clothes you're wearing.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Honestly, it is. It's punk. It's cool.

• 48:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  And it does leave an effect.

• 49:00Fearne Cotton?

  We need more of that.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, me and my friend Kim, we always say how we need mischief in our lives.

• 49:08Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, we need mischief.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think that as I've got older, I've realised that that mischief can be really joyous as well. Like fun and funny.

• 49:19Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  And again, like a woman's mischief is like, or a queer mischief is like nothing else. The best, the best. It's not there to cause anyone harm.

• 49:29Fearne Cotton?

  No. Or to do anything that's, you know, gonna affect anyone negatively. It's mischief for fun, like that magic crackling energy in the air.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Marsha P. Johnson, who's in the Sisterhood, uh, was a trans activist in seventies New York. And she is just such a unique and beautiful woman. Um, who, when you like watch interviews of her, which there's not loads of archive of her. She, you know, she was in this space or in this statistic of being one of the most vulnerable people that you could, you know, in those early seventies years of the Stonewall riots.

• 50:08Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  In America at that time. And there was a lot of violence towards the queer community. But if you were black and trans as well, it's just like goes into a whole other terrifying space. But one thing that I just loved about Marsha, and I love so many things about her, like her defiance and courage is incredible and her love. But she's mischiefous. She's funny.

• 50:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Like the way she wears clothes. She's like always wears flowers in her hair. And she didn't have any money, but she would take them from like restaurant tables at the end of a night. And like just be so transgressive and inventive in her style and demeanor. And there's, there's so much to be said about the magic of mischief and, and it's kind of natural kind of wildness, like.

• 51:01Fearne Cotton?

  We need more mischief and. Do you know what, it's so interesting because reading this has come at a very interesting time in my life because I think when I started doing Happy Place, it'd been nearly nine years ago, I was in a very different headspace where, and I've been reflecting on it recently because the, the book I wrote Happy is 10 years old next year. So I've been like reading it back and reflecting on it. And some of it, I'm like, wow, I was so uptight because I was so, like, I had PTSD from shit that had gone down and I, and I was clinging on for dear life. Oh my God, regimented, everything must be a certain way, follow the rules, don't break anyone's rules, don't upset anybody, be palatable, placate, be malleable and just like, just stay in these confines because that was safe. And I think now, like 15

• 51:44Fearne Cotton?

  years or so later, now I'm starting to go, I don't want to deal with all of that, like the rigidness, the, the regimented lifestyle, the rules, the expectations on us as middle aged women. I don't, don't want any of that. I want to feel as liberated as possible. And I think so many women out there listening to this now will have that feeling of like, oh my God, I, I am so staying within, in these confines to like feel safe, which is totally understandable, or to please everyone around them, or because there's certain expectations on who you are in your family dynamic. And most of us want to break free of that. We

• 52:26Fearne Cotton?

  don't want to feel that like tension anymore. And, and I just urge anyone who's listening to this, who feels that way, to read your book and to read these stories about women that have just gone, I'm not doing the rulebook thing here. I'm not, I'm, I'm doing intuitively what feels right to me.

• 52:44Speaker 01

  I mean, it sounds so cliché, but YOLO, like, we literally,

• 52:47Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  like, you only live once.

• 52:50Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  I mean, unless you believe in past lives, but that's a whole other podcast.

• 52:54Fearne Cotton?

  That's another five hours.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  But like, right here, right now, like, here we are. Like, we survived it, you know?

• 53:02Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  It's not been easy.

• 53:04Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  And it's time for a bit of fun. It's time for a bit of colour.

• 53:09Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  Time for dancing.

• 53:11Fearne Cotton?

  Yes. This is it.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  You know, all these things.

• 53:14Fearne Cotton?

  Yes. This conversation is the opposite of the optimisation one where you get up at four, you do some weird exercise.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  I honestly find it funny.

• 53:24Fearne Cotton?

  It's hilarious. And then you have to eat everything before 11 and then you must fast. It's like, fuck me, that sounds boring.

• 53:30Speaker 01

  It's just too hard. It's too hard to keep up.

• 53:33Fearne Cotton?

  This book for me has come at exactly the right time and has made me like fizz with excitement, fizz with excitement about what's possible for all of us women in our individual lives. And it's not to do with accolade, it's not to do with achievement, it's to do with how we inhabit our space and how we live. And you've nailed it with this book.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. It means a lot. Honestly, my heart sings at all of that. And because it is for everybody, it is for us. It's like, everyone's like, well, what's the through line? Like, who's the market? You know, what connects all of these people that you've decided to join together in this constellation? And it's about all of us. It's about men and women. It's about the trans people. It's about us protecting the world and nature from the climate crisis. It's about so much.

• 54:29Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 54:30Speaker 01

  Um, and when we embrace that with a sense of like who we actually are and how we can look after ourselves, then it really helps us look after everything else and others. And it is a freedom, it's liberation that I seek. Obviously, it's ongoing forever.

• 54:47Fearne Cotton?

  Forever.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  Like this, like we were saying.

• 54:49Fearne Cotton?

  There's no five step plan. Just every day forever.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  And I haven't like necessarily reached like heaven or ascension, but I have experienced love. And I know that love is so many things now. Like, love is our romantic life and our partners. But it's also, you know, the families that we build, whether that's chosen family, or the people that we are related to by blood, or that we invent in an imagination, sisterhood, or just having a beat and a moment and forgiving someone. It's so many, and that includes yourself, like forgiving yourself. It's so many things.

• 55:30Fearne Cotton?

  Hey, this is going to be a tricky question considering your DJ background.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:34Fearne Cotton?

  But we're making a Happy Place playlist.

• 55:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:37Fearne Cotton?

  What song would you put on there?

• 55:38Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 55:39Fearne Cotton?

  It's one of those moments where like, you can't think of any songs. That's why I have.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  Have you got I Can't Pop on there? I love it.

• 55:47Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  Okay. Yeah, definitely. You know,

• 55:49Fearne Cotton?

  I don't care. I love it.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, great tune. I love DJing, Max. I literally just dance like,

• 55:54Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  Like a Jack in the Box.

• 55:56Fearne Cotton?

  That's not on there. That can go on there.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  Okay, great. It really helps for, if you just need to shake it out.

• 56:00Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. And where is your happy place?

• 56:02Speaker 01

  Um, by the sea. And kind of anywhere. It can be somewhere cold. I've been living in Scotland for six years and I love that sea in its ruggedness as much as I love the sea's edge of Jamaica, which is where it all gets really turquoise and tropical. But I mean, that's another thing that's happened in this process is that I've really found like who I am from a roots perspective because I am half Scottish and, half is not really the right metric. I'm Scottish and Jamaican in terms of like my mum and dad, like where

• 56:40Speaker 01

  their family are from. And I think that that has been really, really like special to do. And it does always take me back to the sea.

• 56:54Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:56Fearne Cotton?

  Gemma, thank you so much for chatting today and for writing a book that's going to have such a far reaching ripple effect in so many beautiful ways that you'll, you'll never know about because it's just going to keep going and keep going. It's so exciting.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  Thank you. And thank you for all the work and like, let's do this again.

• 57:10Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, please.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Come and dance in the Immortal Sisterhood live.

• 57:13Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  Can you play an instrument, Fern?

• 57:15Fearne Cotton?

  Uh, the triangle.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  All right. That sounds good.

• 57:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  That's more than me. That's more than me. I'm like, kind of like, I will keep doing the narration.

• 57:23Fearne Cotton?

  We can't be good at everything, babe.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  Oh no, I mean, right? And please, the next time I see you, can you please have a handbag that is also a clock?

• 57:34Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna show you a picture of my auntie Karen now.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  Shout out to your auntie.

• 57:38Fearne Cotton?

  Auntie Karen, come on. Ah, Gemma, I love you. Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and your happiness and your energy. Standing next to Gemma is like being really close to the sunshine. It's like the best feeling ever. So warm and glorious. I love you, Gemma. And it's such a shame that it took a podcast for us to meet up. We need just to do that without microphones. We've shared so many brilliant times together over the years, whether it's Glastonbury or presenting random shows to the BBC. So yes, I need to see that brilliant woman more. And her book, oh my God, Gemma's book, The Immortal Sisterhood, 12 Guiding

• 58:19Fearne Cotton?

  Stars to Grow, Heal and Navigate Life, is available now in paperback and it is beautiful. That book landed in my lap at exactly the right time and I still think about passages from it. It's so beautifully written. It's really unusual. You can absolutely tell, like I said in the chat, that Gemma's been given free rein to just write a book that feels right to her. There's no rules to it and I love it for that. So definitely go treat yourself to that book. It is brilliant. I want to say a massive thank you to Gemma for joining me today. And of course, to you gorgeous listeners, I'd be lost without you. Thank you.

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• 1:00:53Speaker 04

  Help I Sexed My Boss is the podcast where manners meets mayhem. I'm William Hanson.

• 1:00:58Speaker 03

  I'm Jordan North.

• 1:00:59Speaker 04

  And together we take on the hilarious challenges of modern life.

• 1:01:02Speaker 03

  William's the arbiter of etiquette.

• 1:01:04Speaker 04

  And Jordan's the chaotic yin to my perfectly polished yang.

• 1:01:08Speaker 03

  So if you want laugh out loud stories and brutally honest moments, then you'll love Help I Sexed My Boss.

• 1:01:14Speaker 04

  Watch and listen every Tuesday and Friday.

• 1:01:16Speaker 03

  On YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:01:19Speaker 04

  Just search Sexed It.

• 1:01:20Speaker 03

  Be warned, it's a bit rude.