Maya Jama

Maya Indea Jama (born 14 August 1994) is a British television presenter and radio DJ.

She co-presented BBC One's Peter Crouch: Save Our Summer alongside Peter Crouch and Alex Horne and was the presenter of the BBC Three competition Glow Up: Britain's Next Make-Up Star for the third and fourth series and ITV2’s dating series Love Island.

In 2012, Jama moved to London to pursue a media career, first as an actress, then as a TV presenter and fashion model.

Acting had been Jama's first ambition, but realised that becoming a presenter might suit her better.

Her early role models included Davina McCall and June Sarpong.

Jama began her presenting debut as a teenager, presenting the weekly music video countdown on JumpOff.TV, and later worked for Sky UK on TRACE Sports.

In radio, Jama hosted #DriveWithMaya on Rinse FM from 2014 to 2017, and co-presented Radio 1's Greatest Hits and presented her eponymous show, Maya Jama on BBC Radio 1 from 2018 to 2020.

In 2023, Jama took over as the host of the ITV2 dating reality series Love Island.

Jama was born and raised in Bristol, where she attended Cotham School.

She is of Somali descent on her father's side and Swedish and Scottish descent on her mother's side.

Her mother, Sadie, was 19 when she gave birth to Jama, and she named her after the US author and poet Maya Angelou.

She also has a brother.

Jama's father was in prison for most of her childhood, for violence-related crimes such as pub brawls and fights.

Aged 12, she decided to stop visiting her father in prison and for a decade blocked him from her thoughts.

In 2014, she hosted Maya's FIFA World Cup Cities for Copa90, a travelogue covering the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

She also co-hosted the Copa90 nine-part World Cup Taxi series dedicated to the event.

In August 2014, Jama joined MTV as a presenter for The Wrap Up.

Between 2014 and 2017, she hosted #DriveWithMaya, a weekday show on Rinse FM.

Jama co-presented Trending Live! on 4Music from 2015 until 2017, Cannonball on ITV in 2017, the MTV show True Love or True Lies in 2018, and the first series of The Circle with Alice Levine on Channel 4.

She said in a 2017 interview with The Guardian that she did not really notice it being a problem: "It was normal for me. My dad's side of my family was super-supportive and they did everything in their power to make me and my brother not feel like we were missing out on anything".

While working on the documentary When Dads Kill in 2017, which dealt with young people's experiences similar to her own childhood, she relented and examined her relationship with her own father, by then released from prison, meeting with him in an attempt to elicit answers directly from him; "nothing he said, and nothing his family told her, gave her any real insights" into why he had ended up in prison.

Jama remains close to her mother and occasionally the two appear on talk shows together and attend private celebrity events.

In February 2017, she worked closely with Brit Awards, hosting their 2017 Pre-Brit Awards Party and hosting a Facebook live stream from the red carpet.

In September 2017, she co-presented the Saturday night game show Cannonball on ITV with Andrew Flintoff, Frankie Bridge, Radzi Chinyanganya and Ryan Hand.

In September 2017 and February 2018, Jama was a guest panellist on ITV's Loose Women.

In November 2017, she became the youngest person (then 23) to co-host the MOBO Awards on Channel 5 with fellow presenter Marvin Humes.

In September 2018, Jama co-presented the first series of The Circle on Channel 4 with Alice Levine.

In October 2018, she co-presented Stand Up to Cancer with long-standers Alan Carr and Adam Hills, and became the team captain on ITV2 rap panel show Don't Hate the Playaz presented by Jordan Stephens.

In 2018, she joined BBC Radio 1, presenting Radio 1's Greatest Hits on Saturdays and co-presenting every Friday with Scott Mills and Chris Stark.

From 2018 to 2020, she presented her own show, Maya Jama on Fridays and Saturdays on BBC Radio 1.

In 2019, she appeared on A League of Their Own Road Trip alongside actor and comedian Tom Davis.

She appeared on Channel 4's The Big Fat Quiz of the Year in 2019 and 2020.

In early June 2020, she presented the Saturday evening BBC One TV programme Peter Crouch: Save Our Summer.

Later that year she co-presented BBC One's New Year's Eve programme The Big New Year's In.

In January 2021, the BBC announced that Jama would be the new presenter of Glow Up: Britain's Next Make-Up Star, replacing former presenter Stacey Dooley, who presented the first two series of the programme.

In February 2021, Jama appeared as a celebrity guest judge during the second series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK.

In September 2021, it was announced that Jama would be the host of Simon Cowell’s new music competition gameshow Walk The Line.

In October 2022, it was announced that Jama would take over from Laura Whitmore as the presenter of ITV2 dating reality series Love Island.

In August 2023, Jama was announced as host for Love Island Games, a global spin-off show.

On 15 May 2020, the BBC confirmed in a statement that Jama had left Radio 1 after two years.