Fearne Cotton feared she’d never “feel joy again” when she was hit by depression.
Fearne Cotton
The 39-year-old presenter suffered a “big, big dip” in her late 20s/early 30s, which led to her quitting her high-profile job at BBC Radio 1 and she admitted at the time she was obsessed with the idea she would be rejected and replaced.
Explaining what she thought at the time, she said: “[I was] pretty, pretty low. Just bleakness.
“I’m not gonna be able to work, I’m not gonna feel joy again, I’m never gonna have the feeling of just peace without there being panic that something awful is gonna happen.
“And shame! I don’t want to feel shame ever again.”
Fearne admitted the downside of being famous is the impact on mental health.
Speaking to Grazia magazine, she said: “I’m not sat here complaining. I love my job, this is merely one downside to it that, you know, I can deal with, I have dealt with… But what I want to do is articulate that [fame] equals nothing.”
After quitting her radio show, Fearne – who has children Rex, seven, and Honey, five, with her husband Jesse Wood - “got some medication” and began “looking at how [she] wanted to live” and is now feeling much more optimistic about the future.
She said: “It’s been 10 years of digging around really deeply and … I hate it when the story is linear and, oh and now I’m better!
“Who knows what is going to happen in the future?
“But in this moment, right now, I’m feeling pretty excited and optimistic and useful.
“Feeling useful is such an underestimated thing to lust after.
“But I feel useful. I would rather feel useful than be famous or useful than successful.”
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