Zoe Ball has disclosed that her teenage daughter Nelly has chosen to live primarily with her father, DJ Norman Cook, just over a year after the presenter stepped down from her £950,000-a-year BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show to prioritise family time.
The 55-year-old broadcaster made the admission on her Dig It podcast with Jo Whiley, confessing her East Sussex home has become 'so quiet' since Nelly, 16, decided to base herself at her ex-husband's house. 'Mine's so quiet,' Ball said. 'Nell's based more at her dad's now because I think she's got to that point of, oh, can I just be in one place because all her [GCSE] revision notes are on the wall, her dad's, and it's like just not having to move from house to house.'
Ball, who left the breakfast show in December 2024 to focus on family during Nelly's GCSEs, noted that the arrangement works well as Cook lives just 'around the corner' in Hove. 'I can nip around any time, which is great and she can come here if she gets upset about anything. She'd be like, mum, I need you. But it's less and less,' she added.
The former couple, who married in 1999 and separated in 2016, also share 25-year-old son Woody. Ball described her children's different personalities, saying: 'Nell is such a daddy's girl. And Woody is a real mummy's boy.' She emphasised that she tries to give both children equal attention and love.
Cook, 62, recently told The Mirror he was pleased to be back on stage at Radio 1's Big Weekend after a break from helping Nelly with exam revision. 'I've been off the road for three weeks so I'm like a caged tiger, ready to play. After weeks of revision I need to get out and kick off some cobwebs,' he said.
