Zoe Ball was in tears after her car was broken into while she was on TV. The 54-year-old was making an appearance on BBC’s The Show when the crime against her was committed.
The former Radio 2 presenter discovered the front window of her car had been smashed and her bag has been taken from the front seat when she returned to her vehicle. During an appearance on the Dig It podcast she co-hosts with Jo Whiley, Zoe explained she was overcome with emotion after the ordeal.
She said: “Someone had smashed the front window of my car, that’s never happened to me before. I got in and I had a massive cry. It was good, I love a big blub.
“The ones where you wake up in the morning and your face is a bit swollen and you’re like: ‘Well, I’m glad I got that out’ Zoe admitted she regretted leaving her bag on the seat as she explained it was because she was in so much of a rush.
She added: “Do you know what I did? I did a stupid thing, I was so busy running into The One Show with my suits and my bag and everything.
“And we were going to do a picture with our Spotify picture [team], which was amazing, and I left a bag on the front seat. Big no, no in London, idiot. Luckily, nothing in it except my diary.”
Zoe needed to drive from London back to her home in Brighton so she grabbed an old festival poncho from the car and used it to cover the broken window and close the door. She said :”I wrapped it around the smashed door [and] slammed it tight and was like: ‘Right, okay, I’m probably going to have to drive from London to Brighton at 30 miles an hour’ …
“I’m not very practical. Sometimes when things like that happen, I’m like: ‘Right, oh yes, what do I do? I don’t have any masking tape’. Anyway, they didn’t get anything valuable, so it was fine.”
Zoe departed her role as a presenter on BBC Radio 2 in December. She confessed she used her previous job hosting BBC Radio 2’s breakfast show as an excuse to get out of going to events that made her feel uncomfortable, but she’s struggled to talk her way out of unwanted commitments since she quit the role last year.
Speaking on the Dig It podcast, she said: “I have really bad social anxiety.
“My brother has it too. And so whenever there’s an event coming up, be it Glastonbury or a wedding or a party, I’m always slightly in the back of my head trying to think of an excuse of not being able to go, which my old job was a great excuse, and I used it for years.
“And now I don’t have that job anymore. I can’t use it as an excuse. Oh I’ve got to have an early night.”
Zoe added: “I am really bad at small talk. It makes my skin crawl. I have had to reverse myself out of conversations when I have said something so weird.
“So it’s people’s little kids. I’m like, yep, great, I’ll go look off to the little kids, because then I don’t have to talk to adults. “I am like: ‘Let me go and sort the ice out. Let me lay out the salads. Give me something to do’.”