Fearne Cotton reflects on challenges of getting older in TV industry: ‘I’m not young and gorgeous’
Fearne Cotton has reflected on aging in the public eye, saying it is harder to get opportunities when she is no longer “young and gorgeous”.
The 42-year-old started her presenting career aged 15 in 1996 and, over the years, hosted CITV, CBBC and Top of the Pops before turning to writing self-help books and CREATING her chart-topping wellnesspodcast, Happy Place.
She has previously described the TV industry as a “pit of lions”, and has been vocal about the mental health challenges she underwent while presenting. The star recently underwent surgery to remove tumours after a health scare.
While celebrating the one-year anniversary of her podcast, Cotton’s friend and presenter Alex Jones interviewed her to reflect on the journey so far.
However, the mother-of-two, who recently announced her separation from her husband Jesse Wood, said that it is getting a lot more difficult to remain “relevant” on account of her age.
“To stay relevant or to keep people hooked in is getting harder and harder,” she said.
“And I’m no spring chicken. When you’re 25, you can naturally build this big following. People are excited by you, you’re young and gorgeous – and you know, I’m not.
“We’re in the twilight. We’ve got to work harder. I only want to hone my craft further. I don’t feel like I’m anywhere near where I want to be.”
Cotton also opened up about her feelings of unworthiness as she often questioned why people want to take a selfie with her in the streets.
“Why does someone want a selfie with me? I’m just some random person whose totally flawed and bumbling through life,” she said as she reflected on a day in particularly when she was having a “downer”.
She was confronted by her manager at which point Cotton realised: “I feel like I don’t deserve to be doing this.”
She continued: “I’ve had it before on the podcast, I’ve had it when doing TV shows, terribly so where I don’t want to do telly at the minute. I just think I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t be doing this.
“The only way to get round it – I have made drastic decisions to not do certain things – but I think calling yourself out on it, Like ‘I feel unworthy of being here, I feel out of my depth’ and then going one level deeper, the absolute terror of being unliked that sits beneath a lot of it. We’ve all got it. We don’t want to be disliked.”
