Fearne Cotton
It’s good to have goals, and a recent quest for Fearne Cotton, the perennially perky broadcaster-turned-wellness devotee, was to create the perfect vegan sausage.
‘I thought there’s got to be a way of doing it, so I experimented a lot and I’m really happy with the results,’ she says. ‘They’re really flavoursome, really easy to make, and even the naysayers who like real meat would think they tasted pretty damn good.’
Said sausages (which, by the way, are made with black beans, smoked tofu and sundried tomatoes), feature in her glossy new cookbook – the latest in a string of food and wellbeing books by the 38-year-old. It’s called Happy Vegan, although Fearne isn’t completely plant-based herself. ‘I bloody love eggs,’ she confesses.
‘I’m pretty much vegan when I’m at home, but if I’m out and about or away filming, it is slightly harder. I know that sounds like a cop-out, because there are loads of people that are very dedicated to it.
‘It’s really tricky because we’re so used to going “I am this” and boxing in what we are, foodwise, and if you’re a bit of both then you’re damned for not being committed. But eating a vegan diet, even if it’s not 100% of the time, is always going to help.’
Although she still scoffs the occasional chunk of cheese, Fearne hasn’t eaten meat since the age of 10. Her ‘seminal moment’ happened while watching Newsround at her home in Northwood, near Watford. ‘It was all about live animal transportation, which I’d never heard of – I had no concept of how meat ended up in our house – and I vowed to stop eating meat from that day on.’
This resolution came as no surprise to her signwriter dad, nor her mum, who she persuaded to go veggie with her. After all, Fearne had always been ‘pretty definite about things, and very independent’.
‘I was a very chatty child – probably loud, actually – and full of energy,’ she recalls. ‘I’ve got insane amounts of energy, which is great because I get a lot done, but I find it really hard to switch off and I don’t sleep well.’
That bounciness came in useful when, aged 11, she joined her local dance and drama school, which became ‘my absolute everything’. Setting her sights on an acting career, Fearne threw herself into theatre productions and the occasional advert before landing a presenting job, aged just 15, on ITV’s Disney Club.
‘I didn’t want to be a presenter, I wanted to be an actress, but I went off on this tangent that I’m still on,’ she says. ‘Getting that first job was just amazing because I was a normal state school kid from the suburbs, and then all of a sudden I was interviewing Five and Bewitched. It was a pinch-me moment every time I went in to work.’
Inevitably it made her the target of bullies, ‘because if you are a kid who’s on TV you stick out like an absolute sore thumb. It was girls in the year above me going “Who do you think you are?”, and it really did affect me. There were a few times I was like “Mum, please don’t make me go to school”. Luckily I had this amazing group of mates who really stuck up for me.’
The best revenge was becoming a household name, presenting shows ranging from Top of the Pops to her own Radio 1 mid-morning show, and giving as good as she got to Keith Lemon as a team captain on ITV2’s outrageous Celebrity Juice.
But beneath the bubbliness, Fearne wasn’t faring so well mentally. ‘I don’t really go into timings and what was going on for me personally, because it’s stuff that I’m still working through – I have therapy every week. But it was a heady mix of lots going on, and a hereditary line on my maternal side: my mum dealt with depression, and her mum had depressive episodes.
‘It’s difficult to pinpoint exact moments, but one big episode lasted a long long time, probably in varying shades over a year or two, of definitely feeling not right.’
Eventually Fearne opened up about her depression and ‘disorientating and scary’ panic attacks in her bestselling 2017 book, Happy: finding joy in every day and letting go of perfect. She’s since organised Happy Place festivals and hosts the Happy Place podcast, with guests including Russell Brand, Dawn French and Stephen Fry speaking candidly about their own mental health.
‘For me, the podcast is a selfish exercise because it’s a huge opportunity to learn,’ she says. ‘If we all listen to other people more, there’s more empathy, there’s compassion, there’s humility, there’s less anger, there’s understanding.’
These days, life is a smoother ride for Fearne, ‘although it’s not like “I used to have depression and now I’m cured”. That’s the story we’re too often presented with, and it’s not really how it works,’ she says. ‘I still dip in and out now. Nothing as bad as it was, and I do have more coping mechanisms, but you still just take each day as it comes. Some days are brilliant and other days you feel like s***, and that’s just how it is.’
One of those coping mechanisms is cooking which, she says, ‘gives me a creative outlet that acts like meditation.’ And she’s hoping that everyone will get something out of Happy Vegan, whether they’re fans of pulses or poultry. ‘That’s what the book is about: introducing people to it who might not have eaten vegan food before, as well committed vegans. And anything that encourages people to eat more veg and really lovely home-cooked food, and go plant-based even for a bit of the week, has to be a good thing.’
:: Happy Vegan: easy plant-based recipes to make the whole family happy is published by Seven Dials, priced £20.
Cottoning on
Fearne has children Rex, 6, and Honey, 4, with guitarist Jesse Wood, son of Ronnie Wood, who she married in 2014. Yet having a Rolling Stone as a father-in-law doesn’t mean hanging out with the band: ‘Obviously I’ve met them all, and we’ve been to countless gigs, but it’s not like we’re having Sunday lunch with Mick Jagger.’
She hit back at recent reports suggesting that, because she and Jesse sometimes sleep in separate beds, her marriage is in trouble. In an Instagram post (featuring the couple kissing), Fearne stated that it was only because of her insomnia.
There’s broadcasting in Fearne’s blood: BBC executive Sir William (Bill) Cotton, who oversaw classic comedies including Monty Python’s Flying Circus and The Morecambe and Wise Show – and was the son of bandleader and entertainer Billy Cotton – was her grandfather’s cousin.
An edited version of this interview appeared in Waitrose Weekend on October 4th 2019. (c) Waitrose