Zoe Ball

Zoe Louise Ball (born 23 November 1970) is a British broadcaster and presenter.

Ball was educated at Heston Junior School in the district of Hounslow between 1975 and 1978.

Her family then moved to Farnham Common in Buckinghamshire.

She attended Farnham Common First School and Farnham Common Middle School before moving to Holy Cross Convent School in Chalfont St Peter and Amersham College of Art and Technology for a "City & Guilds in radio and journalism".

She also attended the Young Theatre at Beaconsfield where she trained as an actress.

Her first TV appearance was as a child in the studio audience of the 1980s Saturday morning children's show, Saturday Superstore, on which her father was appearing as a guest.

She was the first female host of the Radio 1 and Radio 2 breakfast shows for the BBC, and presented the 1990s children's show Live & Kicking, alongside Jamie Theakston from 1996–1999.

Ball was a contestant in the third series of Strictly Come Dancing.

Ball began her television career as a runner at Granada Television and researcher for Cool Cube (1990-1994), a children's Saturday afternoon magazine show, lensed at Granada's studio in Manchester, produced by Clear Idea Television, and broadcast on the on British Satellite Broadcasting channel Galaxy.

She then worked as a researcher for quiz shows for two years.

In 1994, Ball presented SMart with Mark Speight and Jay Burridge until she left in 1996.

In 1995, Ball hosted Fully Booked for the first series.

Between 1996 and 1998, she was a regular presenter on Top of the Pops, usually alternating with fellow presenters and DJs Jayne Middlemiss and Jo Whiley.

Her presenting jobs have also included hosting The Big Breakfast and The Priory on Channel 4, BBC One's Saturday morning children's programme Live & Kicking in 1996, and the pre-school programme Playdays.

Between 1999 and 2001, she was a co-host with Jamie Theakston on the Wednesday night chat/music show The Priory, which was commissioned by Chris Evans's then production company Ginger Productions.

Ball co-hosted the 2002 Brit Awards with Frank Skinner, In 2005, she co-hosted the BBC reality show Strictly Dance Fever.

In 2006, Ball co-hosted the ITV programme Extinct, alongside Trevor McDonald.

In January 2007, she presented the second series of ITV's Soapstar Superstar, taking over from Fern Britton and Ben Shephard, who hosted the first series.

In March 2007, she hosted the ITV talent search Grease Is the Word.

Alongside Jamie Theakston, Ball presented Channel 5's quiz series Britain's Best Brain in 2009.

Ball has guest presented several episodes of The One Show as a stand-in for Alex Jones.

Following this, in 2011 she replaced Claudia Winkleman as host of the BBC Two spin-off show Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two until her departure in 2021.

Ball also hosted the Strictly Come Dancing Live Tour in 2011 and 2015.

On 4 August 2013, as hostess of a special entitled Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor, she revealed Peter Capaldi as the incoming Twelfth Doctor and hosted his first interview in that capacity.

In November 2013, she co-hosted the BBC One Children in Need telethon, alongside Sir Terry Wogan, Fearne Cotton, Nick Grimshaw and Tess Daly.

In 2014, Ball presented a BBC Two spin-off from The Voice UK called The Voice: Louder on Two.

The show aired for one series of ten episodes.

In 2015, Ball hosted EastEnders: Backstage Live, a spin-off show during the EastEnders live week.

She co-presented the BBC Young Dancer competition with Darcey Bussell on BBC Two.

She also narrated two ITV Specials, The Nation's Favourite '70s Number One and The Nation's Favourite '80s Number One as well as the BBC One series Don't Tell the Bride.

In 2016, Ball co-presented Can't Touch This, a Saturday night game show for BBC One, alongside Ashley Banjo.

She also narrated The Nation's Favourite Carpenters Song.

She guest-presented an episode of Film 2016.

In 2017, Ball co-presented The Big Family Cooking Showdown with Nadiya Hussain on BBC Two.

In 2018, Ball was announced as the new host of BBC Radio 2's flagship breakfast show and took over from Chris Evans in January 2019.

Zoe Ball was born in Blackpool, Lancashire, and grew up in Farnham Common, Buckinghamshire.

She is the daughter of the children's TV presenter Johnny Ball and his wife Julia (née Anderson).

The couple divorced when Zoe was two, Zoe was raised with her father.

Since 2020, Ball has appeared alongside her son Woody Fred Cook on Celebrity Gogglebox.

In 2021, Ball appeared on The Masked Dancer, masked as Llama.