Nick Grimshaw - 'I told The Guardian I was gay before I told my parents'

Broadcaster and author Nick Grimshaw joins Elizabeth to talk about failing his maths GCSE, failing his business and communications degree, his failure to be present, and failing at New Year’s resolutions. ✨ IN THIS EPISODE: 00:00 Intro 01:25 Rising to Fame at BBC Radio 1 02:47 The Importance of Authenticity 03:58 Struggles with Sexuality and Acceptance 08:38 Family Dynamics and Parental Expectations 11:23 University Challenges and Career Aspirations 15:09 Balancing Creativity and Academic Pressure 27:11 Discovering a Passion for Radio 28:50 Transition to Breakfast Show Host 31:19 Facing Criticism and Changing Media Landscape 33:25 Youthful Image and Career Evolution 39:25 Struggles with Being Present 40:36 Meditation and Mindfulness Journey 44:04 New Year's Resolutions and Personal Growth Have something to share of your own? I'd love to hear from you! Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Studio and Mix Engineer: Gulliver Lawrence-Tickell Producer: Hannah Talbot Executive Producer: Carly Maile Head of Marketing: Kieran Lancini How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Elizabeth Day?

  One of the things I hear a lot from listeners is how tiring it can be when your mind just doesn't settle. And I can only imagine this feels even heavier with intrusive thoughts. It's that quiet sense of being worn down by something you never asked for and never wanted, but just can't seem to switch off. If you struggle with this, I want to tell you about NoCD, because it's a resource that genuinely helps people. NoCD provides specialised treatment for OCD. And what I appreciate about their approach is how human it feels. You're matched with a licensed therapist trained in ERP therapy. That's exposure and response prevention. And over time, you learn skills that help your OCD symptoms become manageable, so you can live more of the life you want to

• 0:45Elizabeth Day?

  live. If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NoCD can help. Book a free 15 minute call to get started at learn.nocd.com/fail.

• 1:06Elizabeth Day?

  Welcome to How To Fail, the podcast that firmly believes that failing better can help us succeed better too. Before we get to my wonderful guest, just a reminder about my subscriber podcast, Failing With Friends, where my guest and I answer your questions and offer advice on some of your failures too. Here's a bit of Nick Grimshaw to pique your interest.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  Forget it, that you deserve better. This is, is, stop wasting your energy on this.

• 1:34Elizabeth Day?

  Do send your failures in to get advice from one of my esteemed guests. Follow the link in the podcast notes, or look out for my callouts once a month on Instagram for quickfire questions. Thank you so, so much. When Nick Grimshaw was 13, he was taken from his hometown of Oldham to London by his dad to watch a football match. The teenage Grimshaw persuaded his father to take a detour so they could look through the windows of the BBC Radio 1 offices. As he told his dad with great conviction, that's where he was going to present the breakfast show when he grew up. And it turned out exactly to plan. After studying Communication and Media Studies at the University of Liverpool, Grimshaw started as an intern for MTV. By 2007,

• 2:19Elizabeth Day?

  he joined Radio One to host the station's youth strand. He rose through the ranks, and by 2012, was at the helm of the breakfast show. His six-year tenure was marked both by the fact he was the show's first gay presenter, and by his ability to broadcast live, even after having been out all night with celebrity pals like Alexa Chung or Harry Styles. His memoir, Soft Lad, even revealed the time Lady Gaga asked his parents if her tit-tate was on straight. It's an authenticity that has made Grimshaw, or Grimmy as he's known, feel like the nation's friend. Whether he's on Gogglebox with his niece Liv, hosting the Dish podcast with chef Angela

• 2:59Elizabeth Day?

  Hartnett, or sidetracked with his old mate Annie Mac, his humour and kindness is always inclusive rather than mocking. "The great thing about my job," he has said, "was the more I was myself, the better the reaction." Nick Grimshaw, welcome to How To Fail.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you. Thanks for that intro.

• 3:19Elizabeth Day?

  It's a pleasure.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  Wow, it was like I died.

• 3:23Elizabeth Day?

  Well, don't speak to you soon, maybe.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 3:25Elizabeth Day?

  Maybe this will be a podcast first and you'll die on air.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, fingers crossed.

• 3:30Elizabeth Day?

  I, it's such a pleasure to have you here. We've been trying for a while. I've been on the Dish, most fun I've ever had in podcast form.

• 3:36Speaker 01

  We loved you on that. That was fun, because it was a Friday too.

• 3:38Elizabeth Day?

  It was a Friday.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  It was a Friday.

• 3:40Elizabeth Day?

  It was a Friday, and you made me the best vodka martini I think I've ever tasted.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  It's really good.

• 3:44Elizabeth Day?

  I wanted to end on that quote about realising that the more yourself you were, the more accepted you were, because I think it's such a powerful concept, and it's definitely something that I have felt doing this podcast. And I wonder where you realised that. When did you realise that that sort of authenticity went hand in hand with acceptance?

• 4:06Speaker 01

  I think when I was writing my book, which was...

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Two years ago now, it was the first time I'd like stopped and thought back about myself. Not really thought about my life or like, who am I? What, you know, what are my thoughts on things? So it was the first time that I'd sort of stopped to take stock and think back. And I thought way back to, you know, I really sat one day in my kitchen and tried to remember like my earliest memories and I'd like practise every day to try and like zone back and remember childhood or remember like where did I first listen to the radio or when did I first hold my mum's hand? And I was like trying to like transport myself back all the time. So I'm quite bad at remembering stuff and I remembered quite a lot at school.

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Once I realised I was I was gay when I was at school, I think I spent a lot of time trying to disguise that. So not being myself. So I think you sort of live in like a double life and one is you're like, I'm gay. And then the other one is just this like what I thought like a straight man behaved like. So I I thought about that a lot and I was like, wow, that must have been quite complicated and weird to for my brain to have like this almost facade of this character. And to try and talk about football or to try and talk about F H M. I had to come by F H M and be like, oh.

• 5:35Elizabeth Day?

  High street honeys.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, like I had to try and engage in those conversations. So I was really thinking back to that. And then I was trying to think like, why did I want to do radio? Why was I drawn to radio? Radio one specifically, like what did I like? And I was drawn to people that were, I think, unapologetically themselves, like Sarah Cox. And I remember listening to her when I was going to college and just being like, I just like her. She sounded like someone I could have been in college with. You know, she was going out with her friends at the weekend, maybe a bit hungover on the on the Monday. And I and I really related to it. And I think it was her honesty that I connected with. And then when I started doing radio and uh telly a few years later, when I was like probably like twenty two, twenty three.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  I was really nervous, obviously, because you're in this like weird situation where there's cameras and a microphone and it's, you know, quite unnatural really. But I just found when I was myself more, I. It it was easier to do that job.

• 6:36Elizabeth Day?

  That's so powerful.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 6:38Elizabeth Day?

  I read somewhere that the partying that I mentioned in the introduction in your Radio One Breakfast show days was important for you in terms of that journey of acceptance.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. I think it was. I think I always felt like the odd one out at school, maybe. So I think I'd never felt like I fitted in until I I left school and and had, you know, was probably going out. Yeah, it was when I felt really accepted because we all had this passion of of clubbing, essentially.

• 7:09Elizabeth Day?

  You mention F H M and football and your sexuality. Can you tell us the David Beckham poster story?

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. So basically, I grew up going to Catholic schools. And so I had this sort of like guilt about being gay. And I was like, I'd pray to be like cured or like, why me? I'd be like, I don't want to be gay. I'd pray for it to be like, you know, taken away from me. And I remember thinking, well, what if I try actively to be heterosexual? Maybe it'll budge over a bit. Plot ruiner. It did him. And I remember being like, well, if I go and like, get into football, like, if I I remember like, trying to sit and watch it and like, like it and copy like, you know, the way my brother and dad were sat watching it. And I remember going to get a football magazine. And I thought, well, I'll

• 7:58Speaker 01

  just learn about this. I'll just learn heterosexuality from shoot magazine. It was a really unnatural read to me because I didn't care. I was really trying to force it in. So it felt like a bit like homework. And then I remember flicking through and seeing a picture of David Beckham, like, post-match, I think with a cup. So he'd won something. And he was playing for Man United. And I was like, just totally transfixed and like, drawn into it. And I think I was too young, or maybe I didn't even realise I fancied him. I didn't know what it was, but I just knew that I like, was like. Wow, it was like, almost like a magic eye picture, where you're sort of just like drawn in. And I remember showing it to my mum and saying, can I put this on my bedroom wall?

• 8:43Speaker 01

  And my mum being like, uh, go on, ask your dad. Cause it was like, looking back, he was, I think he was like, maybe wet. And he was like, black and white. And he was quite like, you know, it's quite a sexy picture, probably. And I remember showing it to my dad and my dad was in the garden and I was like, can I put that on my wall? And my dad was like, you can, but don't use blue tack. So his main issue was blue tack. He wasn't like, why do you wanna put a semi naked David Beckham on the wall? He was like, you can adorn it, but watch the wallpaper.

• 9:11Elizabeth Day?

  Wait, so I don't want to, let's just fixate on the wrong detail here, but what did you use to fix the poster?

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Um, well, that's why we're here. I mean, I don't know.

• 9:19Elizabeth Day?

  Cause I would have said no sellotape.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Or maybe he said no sellotape, maybe he said no sellotape and do use blue tack. Maybe he said no sellotape, use blue tack, yeah.

• 9:29Elizabeth Day?

  Okay, I want to talk more about your parents, but let's do that as part of your first failure. Your first failure is your maths GCSE, Nick.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, and, and this stayed with me. Cause when I was asked to think about my failures, I was like, right, what have I done? I had quite a lot, actually, but maths GCSE was one that I think has stuck with me. I failed it, I had to resit it and it made me feel really stupid and really thick. And I think I still think I'm really stupid. And I think that stems from failing my maths GCSE and it being a disaster. A disaster for everyone at school, in my family. My dad was like, I can't believe you failed your maths GCSE. It was like, oh, yeah, I know, I still can't take a phone number down fast. I think I'm numerically challenged.

• 10:21Elizabeth Day?

  You've also given me four failures rather than three, which I think is quite funny in this context.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  Oh, we're gonna do an extended episode.

• 10:26Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, um, and so other than your dad saying, gosh, I can't believe it, what else made it feel desperate? Like, what was the reaction of teachers at school?

• 10:35Speaker 01

  There was like a sense of disappointment and that I was a bit stupid for failing it, I think. And it was like.

• 10:42Elizabeth Day?

  How badly did you fail it?

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think bad. I think I like didn't get a mark, maybe. I did all right in everything else. Two A's, the rest B's, an F in French, U or whatever it was called in maths. So they were fine, but maths was, was my sister was good at maths, my brother was good at maths, my dad was good at maths. So it felt like, oh, you've let down the Vorderman family.

• 11:07Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  So I, yeah, I remember, I remember my sister teaching me at the dining table and being like, why don't you just get it? Just get it. And I was like, I can't get it. And she's like, why can't you get it? So it was always like, uh, it was, it was always expected that I should be good at it, maybe. And then when I failed it, I just felt it was another thing for me that made me feel really different.

• 11:29Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Like, oh, I'm gay and thick.

• 11:32Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  You know, that's what it made me feel like for me. I was like, oh, I can't even add up.

• 11:37Elizabeth Day?

  I so relate in that kind of mindset where I can't get my head around an Excel spreadsheet. If someone will ask me, what, what's the royalty agreement on your books? I'm like, I don't know.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  I don't know. It's so bad. It's so bad. Like, it's so bad. And I don't mean this in a flippant way. Because I, I hate when people are flippant about not knowing things, but genuinely mortgages, anything like that. My accountant has to get like a whiteboard out like I'm full and be like, right, here's your money. You earn it from here. I'm like, yep. And then, and then I'm gone. I'm like, I don't, I don't get it. And I just don't know my brain.

• 12:13Elizabeth Day?

  I'm exactly the same.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  I have to really concentrate.

• 12:26Elizabeth Day?

  Tell me a bit more about your parents.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 12:29Elizabeth Day?

  And what they're like. I know you have an amazing relationship with your mum and I know your dad very sadly passed in 2016. But what, what was your relationship with them like around this time that we're talking about, apart from the disappointment with maths?

• 12:43Speaker 01

  So I always had a really great relationship with them, like always. And, you know, still do have an amazing relationship with my mum. All we do is message each other. Phone calls, that's what we've been doing on. She just called me as I came into this room. But yeah, we speak every day. I speak to like, we've got a family WhatsApp group that goes off every day. And we've always been really close and always really got on and always like, you know, always had blazing arguments. But then get over them within three minutes and then we're best friends again. No one in my family is remotely interested or gassed or wants to hear about radio or who I've interviewed at all. And when I was younger, I was like, aren't you bothered? And now I'm really happy that they're actually like, I don't really care, like they're genuinely not bothered.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  So I've always had a great relationship with them. My dad was really hardworking. My dad was very particular as well in that he'd have like, so he had to have all his clothes facing the same way. And he'd worked really hard. He'd come from, you know, super humble, working class beginnings in, he was born in the forties, nineteen forty one. It was a war baby. So he had a really hard childhood and really grafted and did really well. And then he sort of instilled that or wanted to instill that in me, my brother and sister. It was expected that you would work your absolute hardest. School was really important. What you looked like going to school was really important.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  And my mom was like this too, like you'd have to have really clean shoes. Your uniform was completely ironed and perfect every single day. You would get home, you'd do your homework, you'd have to be thinking about what GCSEs you're doing, what A levels are you doing? How are you gonna do them? Are you gonna be a doctor? Are you gonna be a lawyer? Are you gonna run a business? Like, start thinking about it now. So they were very ambitious, I guess, and really hardworking. And that was instilled in us to want to look really good and to work really hard. Cause I guess that's what they, they had to do, you know, they both came from really um, poor backgrounds. So they wanted to look good and they wanted to work hard and they wanted to achieve.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  So that trickled down to, to us. And when I was not interested in studying hard, my dad was like, you are on another planet. Like, why are you listening to music? Like, what are you on about? Like, he thought that was like silly. He was like, get a proper job. So he could not understand me loving. Um, radio and he thought that was a distraction from achieving something good, which was for him to be, you know, a lawyer or a businessman. So he just was like, what are you on about?

• 15:29Elizabeth Day?

  Did that ever change?

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, it did. When I started, when I moved to London and I say all that with like, you know, he wasn't like, how dare you have a dream. But I think he was just, he'd worked hard. He wasn't like, don't have a dream or like, don't like music, you know, he loved. He loved about five people. He loved and people that were really good, you know, he loved Bill Withers, Bob Marley, Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Streisand, The Beatles. That was it. That's enough. So he was like, we, if I'd buy a record, he'd be like, well, you've got one. You've got loads upstairs. Why are you getting another one? So he was like, you need five, maybe Simon and Garfunkel as well. So he thought stuff was a distraction and not in a killjoy-y way, but I think he just wanted the best for us.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  So when I failed the maths GCSE, that was a disaster. But then when I failed the maths GCSE and started to say things like, I want to work in music PR. He was like, what the fuck's music PR? My dad was like, don't work in PR. They're the first people to get fired. If a, you know, a company goes to shit, be a lawyer. You always need a lawyer or be an accountant. So when I moved to London to want to work at MTV, he didn't know what MTV was. He didn't know what a creative industry was. He didn't, he was like, what the fuck are you talking about? What are graphics for the MTV VMAs? Like, he just, he just didn't know what I was on about. So he was just, I think, concerned

• 16:57Speaker 01

  that I had wasted time, money, years to go and do n- nothing in Camden and get drunk. Which is also what I did. He, when I started doing TV and I'd started doing E4 music first, as introducing music videos, he was like, what does that mean? And he was like, you need to get into the BBC, get a proper job, get into the BBC. Once I started doing Sunday nights at the BBC, at Radio One, he was like, oh, okay. Now that's a real job. Like, I get it. I've heard of the BBC, of course. So that sort of validated me to my dad, I think. I mean, he was doing stupid things with end ups. It wasn't the Today Programme.

• 17:41Elizabeth Day?

  And is it right, that anecdote that I started off the introduction with about you going to London aged thirteen and looking through those doors, looking through the windows of Radio One. Is it correct that your dad reminded you of that when he was dying?

• 17:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is. And it's a, it's a total true story. And I know it sounds like something in a, I don't know, a made up film, but. Um, I came to London with my dad to go to a United away game. And my dad had an A to Z of London. And I, on the way, got it out and found where Radio One was. And was like, we've got to go to Great Portland Street. And I think my dad was like, ah, okay, fine. To like a closed office on a Saturday. And so we went and looked at it. And I remember plotting out on the A to Z. I think they call it manifesting now. Um, I was like, well, I'll live here and then I'll walk there and I'd probably go to this place for lunch.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  And then I'd go and like have my meeting here at this radio station. And I planned it out and marked it all on the A to Z. And um, I actually did do all those things, which was quite weird. And I was like, I probably go to like this cafe here. Thought, I bet Joe Wiley goes there. And I'd like really visualize it. And I made my dad um, take me. And I'd actually like forgot about it. And then, yeah, he died in twenty sixteen and. He'd had cancer for a while and it'd gone away and he'd had chemo and it came back and. It got to a point where we, you know, we knew he was not going to be with us for much longer and he wanted to be at home. And he wanted to be with all the family. So we were all with him when he died. And I remember coming up from London.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  To be with my dad and talking to him. And he reminded me of that story and I'd forgot it. And he was like, you know, I remember you telling me that and you did that. And I was like, wow.

• 19:37Elizabeth Day?

  So he was proud of you.

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. And he brought it up. Yeah, like the, the day, the day before he died. Yeah. There's a lot, there's a lot, Elizabeth, a lot to take in. Yeah.

• 19:48Elizabeth Day?

  Going, going on to seamless link.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Yes, come on, seamless link, from death.

• 19:52Elizabeth Day?

  I didn't know how to move on to that. I didn't know how to move on from that memory, which must be so precious. Sting, yes. Jingle.

• 20:02Elizabeth Day?

  It's about your sexuality.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 20:05Elizabeth Day?

  So you mentioned being Catholic and praying that you could be straight. And I'm just wondering what that conversation was like with your parents then, when you had it. How soon after the mass G C S E did it come? Or maybe it was before.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  Well, it was funny because I like, I remember speaking to um my sister about it. And her saying, like something along the lines of, I just don't think that you have to like ring my mum and dad and tell them you're gay. Because she was like, I just think I'd actually be sick if I had to ring my dad and say, hey dad, just to let you know, I'm having sex with a man at school, like. Ooh, like she was like, I just think it's like too weird.

• 20:48Elizabeth Day?

  This Jane again.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, Jane. So she was just like, do you know what I mean? She's like, why should you have to have this like awkward conversation that I don't have to have? And I was like, God, yeah, you're right. She's like, I think just like, feel it out or something like that. I can't remember what she said. But I remember thinking like, yeah, like it doesn't have to be this like, I have some news. I want to kiss men. Because that's like mortifying as a teenager, like straight or gay, like, I mean, maybe parents are a bit more

• 21:19Speaker 01

  modern now, but like would not want to talk to your parents about sex or kissing or anything like that. So I never really had the conversation with them, ever. Like I never implicitly sat them down and was like, I have some news. I can't even remember how it just like became to be talked about. And I remember like really struggling with the concept of coming out when I was younger and whether or not I thought it was, because like the term I struggled with.

• 21:49Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  And it was like coming out, it was like, well, I've not been pretending to be straight, like, yes, at school, but like not, not to my mum and dad, do you know? So it was quite a funny, it was quite a funny conversation to have because I'm like coming, it's not like I was coming out at fifty and I'm like, oh, I've had a realisation actually, like I've been in heterosexual relationships and I've had three kids and actually, I think I'm gay. You know, I I'd not had any relationship. Truly, I can't remember how. It ended up being even talked about. I really can't. I remember I did an interview and I talked about fancying Frank Ocean. And I think Frank Ocean had just wrote the letter that he wrote on a blog

• 22:33Speaker 01

  or on Tumblr at the time, talking about, oh, the album I just released, which everyone loved, is actually about um feelings I had for a man. And everyone was like, what? And I remember doing an interview with like The Times or The Guardian or something and being like, oh, my god, like, I was sort of in love with him before and like in love with, you know, his music and I'd be like crying and then I'm like, now he's gay. I'm like, he could have been thinking about me or something flippant like that. And then my mum and dad were like, can't believe that you've told The Guardian that you're gay officially before you told us officially. So they weren't annoyed about me being gay. They were more like, how did The Guardian or The Times get the scoop above us?

• 23:12Elizabeth Day?

  That's so funny.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So they weren't annoyed at all, but they were like, you, you know, we love you and we are here for you and you should feel like you could tell us you fancy Frank Ocean.

• 23:22Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Rather than The Guardian.

• 23:24Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. Sometimes it's easier to tell The Guardian.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  It's easier to tell.

• 23:27Elizabeth Day?

  I think that's so well put. And I also have often felt conflicted about that phrase coming out because it implies that you're coming out from a big dark secret.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, like it's a heavy darkness.

• 23:37Elizabeth Day?

  And straight people don't have to do it. So that all of that sort of stuff. And so where are you with your Catholicism now? How do you feel about?

• 23:45Speaker 01

  I mean, I never have been to church unless my mum struck me as a child. But my mum still goes on a Sunday. But my mum has, I think, gone since like nineteen forty five. Like, she's going to church on a Sunday. If she's in London.

• 24:00Elizabeth Day?

  It's like your Barry's boot camp.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  It's like me with Barry.

• 24:02Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  You just go.

• 24:03Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  So she, she, she won't go on her holidays and she won't go if she's, you know, in London with me. But if she's at home, she'll go. And I guess it's different because it's like, I guess as well, it's a massive part of the community. You know, we're from Oldham, which is like Greater Manchester. So everyone at this school knows each other because they all go to the same church. So it's, it's more of like a community thing as well as a religious experience, I think.

• 24:29Elizabeth Day?

  Let's move on to your second failure, which is your degree.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:33Elizabeth Day?

  So we've moved on from the failed maths GCSE to your degree, which you, which was meant to be business and communication studies.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:40Elizabeth Day?

  What happened?

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. So my dad really wanted everyone to go to uni.

• 24:43Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  My brother didn't go to uni. I never heard the end of it. My brother is so smart, so intelligent and knows everything about everything. Like, my brother will know about what happened to the Romans, to how Detroit techno came about. Like, he is so good. Um, but he was like, I don't want to go to uni, not interested. So my dad was like, that's a waste. My sister went to uni and she got first in, I think, business studies, maybe. She's super bright and she went on to have an amazing job in finance. So my dad was like, wow, you better follow in the footsteps of our Jane. I was like, oh, I couldn't pass the maths GCSE, I can't do a degree.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  So I wanted to do anything creative. So I wanted to go and do like media studies or marketing or something that, you know, felt I was experiencing in the world. So I wanted to go make, do a music video degree or something. My dad was like, what the fuck are you talking about? You're going to go and do a proper degree or like, don't go at all. So I found this um, degree at Liverpool, University of Liverpool, which was communication and business studies. And my dad was like, you can't do like a joint honours, that's not a proper degree. And I was like, University of Liverpool is proper uni. It's half business studies, you're happy. Communication studies was basically media studies.

• 26:09Elizabeth Day?

  What was your dad's job?

• 26:10Speaker 01

  My dad worked in like, sales.

• 26:12Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he'd work in sales for, um, and like marketing as well, I guess, in, for like, uh, Findus and Nestle.

• 26:21Elizabeth Day?

  Findus?

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:23Elizabeth Day?

  Stop it. Findus crispy pancakes?

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Findus crispy pancakes.

• 26:26Elizabeth Day?

  Did you eat a lot of those? Did you get those?

• 26:27Speaker 01

  So many, yeah. My bro, that's why my brother thinks he's bald because he ate so many of them in the seventies. Yeah.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, we don't have any legality on that.

• 26:36Elizabeth Day?

  This podcast episode is sponsored by Findus.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  By Findus, crispy pancakes, yes. So I got to do things like political marketing. We'd get to make, you know, we, we, we talked about the Face Magazine and Saatchi and Saatchi and like all this like stuff that I found really exciting and really interesting. So that was the deal. So I could go to uni as long as I did the business studies half. Loved the media studies side, obviously. Loved all the extracurricular activities of flyer in and DJing and doing student radio. And loved all that. Absolutely hated the business studies degree, obviously. It's, it's harder than GCSE maths.

• 27:18Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  I did macroeconomics. I did macroeconomics. I restarted the macroeconomics module, I think, five times. And they were getting worse. I was getting like seven percent.

• 27:30Elizabeth Day?

  That's making me feel sick.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Macroeconomics. I could not tell you, if you had a gun to my head now, what that is. I have no idea.

• 27:38Elizabeth Day?

  And did it?

• 27:38Speaker 01

  And you know why I did it?

• 27:39Elizabeth Day?

  How?

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Why I picked that module? Because my friend Grania did it.

• 27:42Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  And I was like, oh, that's fun. Grania would be in my class. And that's why I did it.

• 27:47Elizabeth Day?

  Grania is our chief of the IMF.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, yeah, she is, yeah. She, she works with the bank in New York.

• 27:52Elizabeth Day?

  Does she actually?

• 27:52Speaker 01

  She does, yeah. She's got a good job.

• 27:55Elizabeth Day?

  Did that feel, did that feel again similar to the maths GCSE failure? Where you were internalizing it and thinking that you were, you weren't good enough?

• 28:03Speaker 01

  No, I think I'd grown by then.

• 28:05Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  I think I was like, this is not for me and that's all right. And I think I'd got really into student radio. I was totally obsessed with, with music and listening to music and DJing and going out and clubbing. And I had the great advice from my older brother and older sister of like, they were like, don't get a real job. Don't do it. Don't listen to what dad says. We love him, but like, don't, don't do it. My sister was like, don't be an accountant. Just go and do what you want to do. So I was like, you're right. So she was getting me like psyched up to not go and do the business finance route. And I'd started doing work experience at radio stations and at a plugging company in Manchester. And they basically would service music from record labels to radio.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  So they were a regional radio company and I'd worked there and I'd assist there in like sticker in CDs or writing the blurb for the back of the record. And they looked after like so many interesting, exciting people, like they did like Depeche Mode and Moby and Gold Frap, Electric Six, Gay Bar, do you remember Gay Bar?

• 29:13Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it was quite like a fun time and I was working there in Christmas and Easter and summer holidays. And I just loved that. And once I started working there and got a taste of going into radio stations and working with artists, I was like, I can't do macroeconomics. So I I felt it was, I I was okay with failing that.

• 29:34Elizabeth Day?

  It's interesting to me that out of the failures you sent me, there isn't a professional one. And I wonder if that's partly because of the enormous love you have for the form that you find yourself in, which is a beautiful thing. But there was a point, when you took on The Breakfast Show, and I absolutely loved you on The Breakfast Show, and it's because you were a different kind of breakfast show presenter. And I think part of the nation was probably not ready for that. But there was an interview that you gave after you moved on from The Breakfast Show, where you said that when you left, you felt like you were Great Britain's most unpopular person.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I remember feeling, I'd never thought about listening figures, like I'd never thought about it. Before I did Radio on Breakfast Show, I'd never done daytime radio. So I'd gone from doing a nighttime specialist show, which was ten till midnight, and we would play all new music, anything you wanted. The guests would be, you know, drunk, the guests would come after the gigs, the guests would bring random people in who'd come on air. You know, it was not daytime radio, one, it's like scheduled and organised, and there's five people who work on your show. And so it was a real switch up, and I never really thought about that. So it was a very different show, and also it was a very different reaction, because at nighttime you could.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  It's just chat nonsense, do whatever, blah, blah. You forgot, like, millions of people are listening in the morning and all the newspapers. So anything that you said or messed up, or if someone gave a date wrong, they were like, oh, I don't even know what day it is. And it'd be like this, like, for all, because you'd said Wednesday instead of Tuesday or something. So it was, I'd never thought about the switch up of like the amount of eyes on the show, the amount of opinions on the show. You know, it's such a key part to people's day, breakfast radio. And I knew that from listening, but I'd never thought about, oh shit, the pressure now is on me, you know, like when you listen to breakfast radio, you know. You you're so in a routine because you're you're sort of, your your way you're leaving your day and starting your day is by the time things happen. So routine is so key to it.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  So I think doing a massive switch up of, oh, we're actually going to play loads of music. It's going to be new music. It's going to be pop stars that maybe are brand new. It was a massive shift in terms of tone of the show, obviously a different presenter. I was twenty eight, I'd just turned twenty eight when I started. And I also wanted to bring some of the nighttime sensibilities. I wanted to bring loads of music. I wanted to play, you know, stuff that I loved on on the show. Yeah, it was a massive change. And I remember when the rage our figures would come in, I'd never had to think about them before because you're on at nighttime. And it was like, they've gone down by this amount. And you were like, oh, my God.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  I was like, I'm let down, like, all those people that are relying on Radio One like I always did. Like that I'm letting down, like, the people like me who loved Radio One and listened to it for the routine. And I was like, oh, I'd be so embarrassed in the office because about all these people will be like, here we is ruining the station. So that I did feel like that, actually.

• 32:50Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, that must have been horrible feeling.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  It really was because you were like, oh, it's a real sucker punch. But also what I didn't realise in hindsight, you know, when Chris Miles, who was on before me, when he started, YouTube didn't exist. So radio was so much more powerful and so much more essential as well. So stuff just changed so much, which, you know. At the time, I don't think we took into account, you know, now YouTube on Radio One, I don't know the stats now because I don't work there, but they were like, they're fucking huge. It's like so huge. And it was sort of shifting as a, as a beast of what radio was. It was no longer just gonna be audio. And I remember when my bosses were saying that to me, I was like, oh, they're like just full of it. Like, no one's gonna watch

• 33:36Speaker 01

  the radio on their phones. What are you on about? And of course, now that's how you consume everything probably on the radio is like YouTube or Instagram or TikTok. So I think it was that transitional stage. I don't know. I guess, looking back, it was an exciting time to be on because it was changing so much. I don't know. It did, it did feel like bad. It felt bad that you were like, oh, my God, it's in the newspaper that no one's listening to it. And you think it's because of you. And maybe some of it was because of me. Maybe people were like, don't like you. And that's fine, I think, because, you know, not everyone can like you.

• 34:10Elizabeth Day?

  Well, I don't know anyone who doesn't like you.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Well, my dad used to say you can't please all the people all the time.

• 34:14Elizabeth Day?

  No. And if you are, which is also impossible, then you're mediocre because you're just like the, the common denominator. It's so interesting to me that for a lot of your career, you have been seen as the kind of voice of youth.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:30Elizabeth Day?

  And actually.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  And now I'm forty.

• 34:32Elizabeth Day?

  Well, this is the thing. You still look so incredibly young.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  That is true.

• 34:35Elizabeth Day?

  And you still do convey that. It is true. But also you had older parents and older siblings. So actually, my impression of you is that you're quite an old soul, if you delve beneath the youthful surface.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  I think I've always felt young because of that. Like the, I was literally the youngest one in my family. And then, yeah, everything that I tend, I did for a while was really youth focused. So when I started Radio One, it was me and Annie Mac on a Sunday night. And that was like the youth strand of Radio One, which now is such a mad concept that they'd have a youth strand of Radio One because that's the entire brand. And then like E four, I guess, and T four was like the sort of young version of Channel Four. And one of the things, the big things that happened when I started doing breakfast, which I think people really didn't like, and I don't think I like in hindsight, was the whole messaging was, oh, it's for young people now. So if you're thirty, you can't listen.

• 35:30Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  And it felt like if you'd been listening to Radio One for years and you were thirty, you'd be like. Off is this guy telling me I can't listen. Do you know what I mean? So it was like a shift and it was a conscious shift. And it wasn't on a whim. I think Radio One were like told to do that by the BBC, like it has to be specifically, it has to get younger. That was their decision. And I think, I think people thought that was me being like, see you later, thirty five year old people, which it wasn't at all. So, yeah, that was, that was very focused on getting younger and being younger and, and that's what they wanted me and the team to be, you know, and that's why that would happen on air, that we'd go to these parties. We were so excited to go to parties because we were like twenty eight, twenty seven. We were so excited to go to, I don't know,

• 36:15Speaker 01

  a Brit Awards after show party and then bring the pop stars on to the show the next day. So it felt timely, like that's what actually what we were doing and that's what we were excited about. And that's hopefully what the listeners also were excited about.

• 36:28Elizabeth Day?

  Is it a relief not to have to be youth orientated anymore?

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Well, I never felt like I, it was a pressure to do it because I felt that I was excited in that thing.

• 36:38Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  And I think when I got into, when I got into like thirty three, thirty four, I was just slowly realising that, oh, I don't really care that much. I care in like, I'm interested in pop culture way, but I wasn't like, it's, you know, you stop getting FOMO. Like you start like, oh, please don't invite me out.

• 36:58Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  And like in the natural way you do when you grow older. So I, I started being less interested in being at everything or being involved in everything because, you know, you're just growing up. And I remember thinking like, oh, I really don't want to be at Radio One when I'm forty. Because I didn't want it to look like, oh, I'm leaving, like you've been sacked basically because you're forty. So I remember thinking then like, oh, I need to think of like an exit strategy. And then when I left, I just felt really content that I was leaving and really happy that I'd done everything that I needed to do there and that it was a youth station and I was thirty seven.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  So I was like, yeah, this is when I should leave. And I remember thinking like, what will I do now and not really knowing? And actively wanting to have a break because I thought, wait, do I even like radio? I've just done this every single day for fourteen years. Do I actually like it? And then I had a break and then I was like, what am I doing now? Like, what do I, so like when I was twenty three and twenty four, when I was starting at Radio One, I was going to gigs every single night and going clubbing and DJing. So like, what am I doing now? And I was like, well, now I just wanna like, talk about like armchairs and recipes, which is how Dish came about.

• 38:12Elizabeth Day?

  Amazing.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  It just felt like that's the equivalent of where I was at, you know?

• 38:16Elizabeth Day?

  Who was the most difficult interviewee in from your Radio One days?

• 38:21Speaker 01

  I cringe at some of them because i- if it was someone like our age, I'd, I'd be unprepared and it'd be like, they'd expect it. So if you were interviewing like, I don't know, a member of One Direction or like a Katy Perry or Adele or someone, they're like your friends. So you'd be like, what have you been up to?

• 38:39Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  And then they'd be like, not much, what have you been up to? And you'd be like, well, have you got a song out? And they'd be like, yeah. And then that was it. I cringe that that would be the interview that I'd be doing with, with people who were like, I interviewed like Denzel Washington like that. Or I'd go and interview like, you know, actual movie stars with that level of prep, like not watch the film. But it was, you know, of the time. But who was difficult? No one was particularly difficult. No one was difficult, I don't think, because they knew it was like live on the radio.

• 39:09Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  I think people were sometimes difficult with my producer Fifi. And Fifi had had to go and like talk to them and they'd be a bit, you know, short. But Fifi was always quite forgiving because it'd be like, you know, seven o'clock in the morning.

• 39:20Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  But no one was like an asshole or anything.

• 39:23Elizabeth Day?

  Well, I also think sometimes not being prepared can be really disarming in a good way. Because then they haven't been asked those questions.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  I remember interviewing Leonardo DiCaprio and I can't remember why we did this, but there was some question where it was like, what would you do if you could have one wish? I guess it was in a film about wishes or something. And he was like, oh, to save all the whales or something. And I was like hysterically laughing. And he was like, and I said, no, what would you do? And he was like, well, yeah, I'd do that and save the rainforest. And I was like, lol, what would you do though? But I didn't know he was like a massive environmentalist.

• 39:56Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  Um, so that was, that was pretty bad. So there was things like that where it's like, they're definitely not coming back.

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• 41:07Elizabeth Day?

  Let's get on to your, well, it's not your final failure because as previously stated, you've given me four.

• 41:11Speaker 01

  There's 14. Get on for everyone.

• 41:13Elizabeth Day?

  Let's go to your failure to be present.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  I'm terrible at this. Because people are obsessed with talking about being present, aren't they?

• 41:21Elizabeth Day?

  I know, but I actually like existing in the past.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  We like the 80s.

• 41:27Elizabeth Day?

  I know. But so talk to me about your failure to be present because you also meditate a lot.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Well, no, I try. I do try. I think I tell people I do, but I go.

• 41:37Elizabeth Day?

  You get visions, I've read.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  I did get visions, yeah, did have.

• 41:41Elizabeth Day?

  What kind of visions?

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Well, it was in lockdown. I always want to start a hobby. I always think I should be doing more things. But then it gets to like Wednesday and I'm like, I'm so tired. I can't do any more things. So I always want to do these things. I'm always saying to Mish, like, we should go and see.

• 41:55Elizabeth Day?

  Mish is your fiance.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's my fiance. And I was like, we should go and see an exhibition every day. He's like, every day? Like, I'm like, all right, every week. Like, we should learn French. We should do a sommelier course. You know what we should do? We should go and trek in this Italian mountain range. He's like, shut up. So I always have these things that I want to do. And one of those things was meditating. Because people always talk about being present and I'm a worrier and a bit of a stress head. And I always am thinking about the worst case scenario from the past and the future, exhausting.

• 42:25Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  So I was like, oh, I'll learn to meditate. And so I did a course in lockdown with um Rob DeBank. He was a DJ who used to work at Radio One and I'd see him at night times and he runs festival, that was his festival. And he's also now a meditation teacher.

• 42:41Elizabeth Day?

  I didn't know that.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I was like, oh my god, I'll do a course with him. So I did a course of meditation with him. And I'd get on a group Zoom because lockdown and I'd go into my room and put a blanket on. And um just sit, wait for him to come on. And then we did this Zoom with all these people. And I had like full, yeah, trip the first time I did it. So it was like full, you know, like what you think that taking acid would be like in the sixties.

• 43:07Elizabeth Day?

  What did you see? Can you remember it?

• 43:09Speaker 01

  Like all strong blobby colours, purples, blues. Yeah, quite nice, vivid. And I did it then and then I did it for about the next three days. And then I didn't really do it again. I'm terrible if I if I do something and I feel really good at it. I'm like, well, that was that.

• 43:24Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Like, you know, you have to, it's a practice, you know, like I go to yoga like three times and I'm like, I'm a yogi.

• 43:29Elizabeth Day?

  Nailed it.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  Nailed it.

• 43:30Elizabeth Day?

  But it, I think meditation is so difficult and I'm very, I relate, I relate to everything you say. I've just started trying to do it every day for ten minutes, like that's it.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  But that's, that's enough.

• 43:42Elizabeth Day?

  Well, so Danny Diak came on this podcast and said that that's the amount that he did and he was very convincing about it.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  And how, does Danny Diak do it every day?

• 43:49Elizabeth Day?

  Yes, says it's really helped him.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, no one's done it and been like, god, my life's so much worse.

• 43:55Elizabeth Day?

  No.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  That was a waste of minutes, do you know what I mean? I remember trying to learn it from when I lived uh in North London. I uh on my street uh was a lady called Yoga Nadia, Nadia, yoga teacher.

• 44:08Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  And Yoga Nadia was like, you don't breathe, you don't breathe, please breathe. And I'd be like, what? Shun about? She's like, never breathe out. She said, do you ever just sit and be quiet? I said. And then I, as I've got older, I love it now. I always used to have to have the telly on, the radio on. I hated being on my own. And now I love it. I love getting up in the morning early. Sometimes I wish the dogs weren't even there. Like, I love it being on my own. So I sort of see that as meditation.

• 44:38Elizabeth Day?

  It is.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  Like, that's just sitting and just like chilling. And she taught me to do it and was like, just try and do it every day. And I got an app and I do it. And I kind of got into it again for like a second win of, of, of, of really trying to do it. But then, do you remember when Dua Lipa brought out levitating?

• 44:54Elizabeth Day?

  Yes. Now you get that stuck in your head.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Now I get that stuck in my head. Cause all I think is, I'm meditating. And it ruins it.

• 45:02Elizabeth Day?

  That really would ruin it.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  And now every time I close my eyes, I think of Dua Lipa, like, if you wanna go, and I'm like, oh, can't do it.

• 45:08Elizabeth Day?

  What if you listened to meditation music?

• 45:11Speaker 01

  Yes, I listened to a guided one.

• 45:13Elizabeth Day?

  Okay.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. But I don't like it when it's too, I need a normal person to do it. I hate when it's like, relax, you're, I'm like, don't talk like that. Just normal voice, please.

• 45:24Elizabeth Day?

  I found on Spotify, just ten minute meditation music, like chakra bowls and stuff.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I went for a sound bath.

• 45:32Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, I love a sound bath. Did you like it?

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Well, I went for one and loved it. And then I went the other week and I fell asleep in it.

• 45:39Elizabeth Day?

  That's good.

• 45:39Speaker 01

  And then, yeah, but then you know, you wake up, you know, and then I shut myself. No, but you know, when you wake up from a nap and you're like, where am I? I had that in the thing. And I came to, and I was like, I had to like lie back down. And then I was like, wait, what am I doing? So that's put me out. But I will go again.

• 45:55Elizabeth Day?

  Your final failure is New Year's resolution.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:58Elizabeth Day?

  And I wonder if there's one New Year's resolution that continually comes back to haunt you because of your failures to keep it. Is it failing to stay present? Do you?

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Staying present. I try to journal in.

• 46:09Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, my gosh. Don't bother. Don't bother.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  Well, sometimes it stresses me out more than.

• 46:13Elizabeth Day?

  One hundred percent. Also because, because I do write a lot for a living. That's also not what I want to do when I switch off from work.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Right, so yeah, so everyone says, here's your journal and like, write down, you know, what you achieved that day and what you wanna achieve tomorrow. That gets my brain going like crazy. So I used to write a mantra and I started it twenty twenty two and I sort of did it for like four months.

• 46:39Elizabeth Day?

  Sorry, we're so similar. I did exactly the same thing at the beginning of this year.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  And then I did it again this year and then I forget about it.

• 46:44Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah, you're doing the whole Tesla thing where you have to write it three times, six times and nine times.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  Oh, I do it five times, just five. Yeah, so I'd write it and then sometimes I'm like, fuck's sake, I'm not wrong with my fucking mantra. And I have to like write it like that, like slam it shut, go to sleep. So I was like, I don't know if it feels like that spiritual. But yeah, every year I always feel like I need to make some like drastic change, like I'm not gonna drink. So I will not drink for like, you know, four months, five months, but I'm quite, I think that is probably quite good to do anyway. So I don't mind not drinking for a few months. So I do like not drinking, gonna learn Spanish. I'm gonna do an art history course, a stage set design course. I should do a wine course. I should learn Spanish, yoga. And also, you know, start doing my mantras. So I start January like too extreme.

• 47:30Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Always, always. Like I did on January this year, ten K run, no training.

• 47:37Elizabeth Day?

  Okay, yeah, I think that's exactly it. And you've fallen into the the New Year's resolution traps, which it's it's a metric designed to make you feel like a failure according to your own goals.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:47Elizabeth Day?

  Because everyone wants to be the extreme best version of themselves, but ultimately you can't just start at that high level.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  I think it's gonna like, you know, strike midnight and I'm gonna turn into like, I don't know, Paula Radcliffe or something for January, like, God, I'm such an athlete.

• 48:04Elizabeth Day?

  Before we close this lovely, lovely chat, you were talking about how you used to be fearful of loneliness.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 48:12Elizabeth Day?

  And how you don't have that anymore. Is that because of Misha, your fiance?

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Maybe. Do you think?

• 48:19Elizabeth Day?

  I think that might be part of it. It sounds like he.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  Maybe, yeah, I feel like secure. I honestly can a hundred percent be myself with Mish. Like all the time, like I, like we have our own, I know it's annoying to say, I'm not like, we have our own language, but I, I think there's something quite freeing in being able to be like really, um, really basic and stupid with each other. So I think that's probably quite, um, makes me feel quite secure. I can be a hundred percent myself with him. Um, and even when he's not there, you know, he, I feel, I've always felt scared in the house, always since I was a kid. And I've not had that since I've gone out with Mish, I don't think.

• 49:01Elizabeth Day?

  Oh, that's so lovely.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Even when he's not there.

• 49:03Elizabeth Day?

  Yes.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  You know, I feel like quite safe and secure.

• 49:07Elizabeth Day?

  That's beautiful. I mean, we started off talking about accepting yourself. And we've ended with you feeling accepted by the person you love most in the world. Thank you so much.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Thank you, Elizabeth.

• 49:19Elizabeth Day?

  Thank you, Nick Grimshaw for coming. I was a fan.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Really great. What was that, free therapy? It's free, right?

• 49:24Elizabeth Day?

  Yeah. Well, the only thing that I'm asking you to do now is to stay and answer listener questions. Other than that, it's totally free. That's the biggest compliment you could pay me, honestly.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  It really was. Thank you. Feel good.

• 49:37Elizabeth Day?

  We heartily recommend you follow us to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please do tell all of your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.