Fearne Cotton has said her "crippling anxiety" left her afraid of work and living like "a hermit," as she opened up about a turbulent period in her life.
The presenter, 44, reflected on the time when she revealed she needed surgery to remove two benign tumours from her jaw in December 2024. The following week, she announced her separation from husband Jesse Wood, the son of Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood, after ten years of marriage.
In an interview with The Sun, Cotton said: "I built up a snowball of anxiety that could be triggered by just stumbling over a word in a conversation." She continued: "It was just nuts, I was crippled with anxiety, I had panic attacks constantly."
She added: "There were lots of things I couldn't do, I couldn't drive a car, couldn't do a lot of TV work I'd been doing, I just felt debilitated."
Nearly two years on, Cotton said she is now "the happiest I've ever been." She said it was a therapist who helped her realise she was struggling with anger.
Name change after split
Cotton has ditched her husband Jesse's surname after their split. She changed the name she uses as a director of We Are Happy Place, the private company through which she receives her earnings as a Radio 2 presenter and podcast host.
She has changed her name from "Mrs Fearne Wood" back to "Ms Fearne Cotton" after Jesse announced that his new girlfriend, Made In Chelsea's Gemma Gregory, is expecting his child. Two of Jesse's four previous children, son Rex, 12, and daughter Honey, nine, were with Cotton. Her representatives declined to say whether her divorce from Jesse has been finalised when contacted by the Daily Mail.
A stranger's poem
In June, Cotton admitted she was "dealing with certain stressful things" as she opened up on Instagram, without saying what those circumstances were.
She shared a story about a stranger writing her and her daughter a poem after seeing them out together in London. She said: "So something really lovely happened today that was a good reminder for me that there are good eggs out there and lovely things can happen if you are open to them."
She added: "So, like many of you, I'm racing through my week, I'm juggling all sorts, I'm also dealing with certain stressful things I'm trying to grow and learn through rather than drowning."
Cotton said she was in a coffee shop with her daughter when an elderly man came over and complimented her daughter's red hair, then wrote the pair a poem. She said: "He handed us this beautiful poem that was so magical and sort of wished us prayers and happiness, and to always have a smile on our faces."
She continued: "It was so lovely, and he handed over the poem, and he said, 'Should we jump for joy?' And we all jumped on the spot. And then me and my daughter had sort of cracked up laughing, thanked Dennis profusely, and left. And we just had a huge grin on our faces." She added: "It's a good reminder, there are great people out there."
The month before, Gemma Gregory had posted on Instagram that she and Jesse were settling into their "new casa," sharing bikini-clad photos showing her pregnancy bump. The couple had a barbecue in the garden during a heatwave, with Gregory writing that they were entering a "new chapter together" and describing their new home as a "happy new chapter."
