Studio usage for new schedule

[Jono]

The first inkling that Fearne Cotton might have a bit more to her than her image as a bubbly, saccharine former children's television presenter is when I catch her getting out of a sleek black car outside her publicist's office. A taxi driver behind beeps impatiently, and Cotton, tall in her black platform shoes, unleashes a tirade at him. The taxi driver backs down.

Cotton, a TV presenter and radio DJ, grew up on kids' television. She seems sweet and wholesome yet her body is covered with tattoos. I can't work her out at all. She seems very confident, with more to say for herself than I'd feared, but rarely makes eye contact. She appears more than happy to strip to her undies for men's magazines and tell them how great she is in bed, and how she likes a Brazilian wax. She says, "I would definitely put myself in the strong woman category" – but won't call herself a feminist. "I don't know about being a wholehearted feminist," she says, then adds: "There are still certain situations where women don't get treated equally, in the workplace, in life. In TV, it's obvious – you have the anchor who is usually a man, and the woman has less of a role, or not paid as well . . ." And then she trails off, sucks juice through a straw and looks at me.

Cotton is 28, and in the last few years she has been everywhere. From presenting Top of the Pops and the Live 8 coverage, interviewing Princes William and Harry before their mother's memorial concert, fronting documentaries and a series "Fearne And" in which she shadowed and interviewed celebrities. She is a DJ on Radio 1, a captain on the ITV2 panel show Celebrity Juice and has, inevitably, designed a clothes range.

Yet perhaps because of her sudden ubiquity, the presenter divides opinion fairly strongly. She has more than 700,000 followers on Twitter, but there are online groups created by people who can't stand her. I confess that I have found her relentless perkiness, which can come across as a desperation for approval, grating on television, but in person she is extremely likable.

How aware is she of how she is perceived? "In the public eye you have a bizarre reflection of yourself, whereas in life you can pretty much get on with what your friends and family think of you," she says. "A stranger would never come up and go, 'You're shit at your job.' In the public eye, you're expected to be some kind of robot and not take it on."

Does it bother her? "Oh, of course it does. I'm a human being. We have a text console [on her radio show] which is forever showing me in a good or bad light. People will go 'Your laugh is ridiculous, please stop laughing'. Or 'You're effing shit on the radio, get off,' and you think, you could have just not texted me, you could have switched to Radio 2 or something. You have to have a thick skin and, as you get older, you care less and less. When I was younger I cared more. There are all sorts of awful things, but then there is some really lovely stuff as well."

As for the TV critics, they "tend to be very negative people. I'm a very positive person and people might find that saccharine, but that's how I like to live my life. I have to ignore them otherwise you would feel absolutely crushed."

Cotton grew up in Eastcote, a suburb of north-west London, in a stable, happy family. Her father is a signmaker, who set up his business when Cotton was around 10; money was scarce and her mother did all sorts of jobs to help support the family. "At one point she was a dental nurse, cleaner and used to deliver Next mail-order packages. She was never there, she was always working. Amazing." Cotton took dance and drama classes and dreamed of becoming an actor and escaping suburbia. She was just 15 when she went along to an audition and got the job as a Saturday morning children's television presenter on the Disney Club.

Not everyone at Cotton's school was supportive. "I got a huge amount of shit for it from the older girls," she says. "I would want to bunk off school most days, but I kept going in. I had a tough time for a while." Like what? "Oh, you know, typical stuff. They would shout stuff out across the lunch hall, throw things, bitchy comments. It happens in every school, there's always an element of bullying. But my friends were brilliant because they stuck up for me and would be mouthy back." She says she would have conversations in her head with the bullies, along the lines of "You just bloody well wait. I'll see you in a few years time when I'm doing very well." She laughs. "Luckily it's turned out OK. To be doing what I'm doing now, it was worth it, in a cheesy way, to have gone through a tiny amount of shit at school."

After Disney Club, Cotton was eager to move on from children's television. "My friends were going out, had jobs and boyfriends, and I was presenting a show that led into cartoons. People thought I was 16 for years when I was in my 20s." Getting a job presenting Top of the Pops gave her a bit more credibility, but perhaps because of her background in children's television, some people have resisted the idea that Cotton has a genuine interest in music. "I love music and always have," she says. "I was lucky because my parents were into excellent music – Led Zeppelin, the Doors, the Who."

Then, when she replaced Jo Whiley, a respected DJ nearly 16 years her elder, as the host of the late morning Radio 1 show last summer, it coincided with a number of other older women on the radio and TV being replaced by younger presenters, including Arlene Phillips on Strictly Come Dancing and Fern Britton on This Morning. All Cotton says now about the fuss is: "Jo wanted to step down to the weekends because she's got a family, and I was obviously over the moon to be asked to do the show. I wanted to step up and give it my best shot and enjoy it."

Does she worry about her future in television? We talk about how few women present prime-time shows, and how many female presenters seem to be pensioned off as soon as they hit 40. "It just takes one woman to break the trend. I always really thank Davina McCall for doing huge legwork for female presenters by anchoring a huge show like Big Brother. But then another person I greatly admire is Joanna Lumley – she has always remained relevant to her audience and now she's making beautiful documentaries." And she says young women also face ageism: "I do think in the industry you're taken less seriously [if you're a young woman]. I've been in meetings with producers where I've had ideas and I'm not afraid to say what I want to do or where I want to head, but I know I haven't been taken seriously. But I've been working since I was 15. Everything I've got and earned I've done myself, and I'm proud of that. You can't be all girly and float along by fluttering your eyelashes at people. You have to be ballsy."

I hadn't expected to find Cotton so driven. "I have nothing to fall back on if I cock it up. I have to give it my all and stay in the business as long as I can. You don't know in this game, you have to make the most of it day by day and hope you stay in it."

What about the sacrifices she has made? Cotton says she was very aware of the responsibility she had to her young viewers, which is one of the reasons she has never been photographed falling out of nightclubs drunk, and has always said she is very against drugs. "I missed every school prom and I didn't get to go out drinking cider in the park with my mates. So I did give up on some of those things, but I look back and I'm so glad I did it. Apart from going to gigs, I like sitting in a nice pub and doing a pub quiz. I love the sanctuary of my house and I feel like I need never leave at times. I have to be wrenched out, because I love my cats and painting and chilling out there. It's really tragic. Saddo single cat lady, that's me."

What's next for Cotton? Unexpectedly, she tells me she is planning to hold an exhibition of her paintings. "I'm terrified because I think a lot of people will be very judgmental: 'Oh, she thinks she can paint now.' Which annoys me because painting is something I've done before I even knew what TV presenting was. I will do it one day." She pauses and despite everything – the bluster, the inexorable positivity, the obvious ease with the sound of her own voice – suddenly looks vulnerable. "When I brave it."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/02/fearne-cotton-ballsy-presenter-dj

[MrDoovdeHaxorz]

Very good interview, and it's The Guardian so it's not the usual airheaded tabloid crap. Still not sure why she gets So Much criticism really, people acting like she's the worst presenter ever. Not saying she's the best either, but she's entertaining enough most of the time.

[Hammer]

I remember that she took particular offence to Charlie Brooker's critique of her ITV2 programme where she followed Peaches Geldof around. Fact is though, that there was nothing biased about that. The epitomy of it was that at the beginning of the programme Fearne was having a look around at Peaches' bookshelf and Peaches was talking about how she was reading a book by L Ron Hubbard. Later in the show she reveals that she is a Scientologist and Fearne is absolutely gobsmacked as though it's the last thing in the world she expected. Wakey wakey

[MrDoovdeHaxorz]

Yeah the Fearne meets.... shows I actually agree, didn't like those much in the 5 mins or so I saw. Still prefer her radio presenting to TV for some reason..

I think a lot of the hate for her radio show is because she's not Jo Whiley and doesn't do quite the same style of show that Jo did, just the Live Lounge that's been kept really... but I don't think she could pull off the Jo Whiley show, and if she tried she'd only get criticism for copying... but she does features that are her own and puts in her own style and it works better than a copy of Whiley's show and style would have done.

[The Stig]

I agree she deserves credit for not trying to be Jo Whiley, as that would have been an easy thing to slip in to, especially as she's carrying on the Live Lounge. However, I don't and never have liked Fearne on the radio. I think she has a lovely unique personality, but I don't think it transfers on the radio. As for the Jo Whiley issue I think it was totally the right time for her to leave the show, but I think she should have been replaced with either Sara Cox or Annie Mac.

However, on TV I think she's great. She's done a fantastic job on The Brits, Live 8 etc, all huge gigs and she is very funny on Celebrity Juice. I really like her as a TV presenter, but not as a Radio presenter. She is a career woman and a excellent professional, she deserves serious praise for getting where she is today, but I just don't enjoy her Radio 1 show. Sorry Fearne! That said I would never be one of those morons that text in abuse, I don't like it so I don't listen. I appreciate others love her and the show and good for them.

[GSY_Fan]

Personally I think Fearne is great on Radio 1, she gets a hard time on boards like this, but so did Jo Whiley back in the day. Out of all the regular DJ's I would pick her as the one that I enjoy listening to the most. Yes I admit she talks a lot of crap, but its amusing banter, that doesn't come across as desperate for laugh's, like it often does when it comes to Chris Moyles, Scott Mills or Greg James.