TV and radio star Zoe Ball has revealed that her teenage daughter Nell suffers from ADHD – a condition she and her son Woody also have
Former BBC Radio 2 breakfast show host Zoe, Ball who has been hotly tipped as the next Strictly Come Dancing presenter, has spoken openly about struggles she and Woody, 25, also a DJ and TV personality, have had with ADHD. She now reveals that her teenage daughter Nell suffers from ADHD too. Zoe, 55, says of her children with ex-husband Norman Cook, 62, aka DJ Fatboy Slim, that they are helping her to cope with her own attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She admits: “I always wang on about having ADHD.”
But she says her children have enlightened her, adding: “It’s been by learning about their situation and how they cope with things, deal with things, that I’ve learned about my own.” Zoe says Nell, 16, is coping well with ADHD, in which the brain works differently to most people’s, which can make concentrating and sitting still difficult.
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And new medication has made her final year at school easier. She continues: “She [Nell] could get through her schoolwork and her exams. It’s really helped her to focus.” Zoe, who is based in the Brighton and Hove area of East Sussex, now lives with her partner, TV production designer Mathieu Weekes, 49 – who she affectionately refers to as “the lodger.”
She says: “There’s three ADHD-ers and three quite gregarious people. And then there’s ‘the lodger’ who’s quite ordered. He does everything and he’s very regimented and that’s the way he survives and he gets through his stuff. He’s brought a bit of calm and order into this house of chaos, which I never realised would be so appreciated. I’m like, ‘thank you’ … because it makes such a difference.”
Zoe first revealed her ADHD diagnosis in December 2023. She says: “I could be like a whirlwind, but what I do need is a bit of order. When you’ve got ADHD, you’re so easily distracted. So you’ll start a task and then you move on to something else. So I can see sometimes why Nell might live in chaos and her clothes are everywhere.
“But she started doing a thing now where every Sunday night, if she stays with me, she will give herself a couple of hours – tidy her room, get her stuff ready for school, put her things away, have a nice shower, do her hair. And I’ve loved seeing her find this for herself. I’m like, ‘yes.’ You kind of realise in the chaos, you appreciate how much a bit of order really helps and that’s what I’ve tried to do in my life.”
Speaking to her pal Jo Whiley on their weekly Dig It podcast, Zoe says her ADHD may have influenced her wild partying during the Nineties, as her overactive brain was always chasing a buzz. She says: “I would never let anyone leave the party. This is probably why I partied probably for 10 years too long. and I just hated the party being over and I hated everybody leaving. And then I would see Woody. Woody would cry when people left to go home, even when he was little.”
Now, Zoe enjoys people’s company, but is happy for them to leave, adding: “I like the calm and the quiet. I think if you have ADHD, you feel things. You take things so personally. And those extremes of emotions can be quite hard to handle.”
Describing her daughter as “smart,” Zoe says she is a typical teenager, despite her ADHD. She adds: “I love my daughter so much, she’s amazing. She’s sassy as hell and I know she’s going to be okay out there in the big wide world, because she’s strong-willed and she’s tough. But, oh lordy, there is no telling her! I think her brother was the same when he was young. As a mum, you have to work out different ways of approaching things.”
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