Fearne Cotton has reflected on the “shame” she experienced after learning of her ex-partner Ian Watkins’ child sex crimes.
The TV and radio presenter dated the former Lostprophets frontman for a period in 2005, while she was working on BBC Radio 1 as well as Top Of The Pops.
In 2013, Watkins pleaded guilty to 13 sex offences, including the attempted rape of a baby, conspiring to rape a child, three counts of sexual assault involving children, seven involving taking, making or possessing indecent images of children and one of possessing an extreme pornographic image involving a sex act on an animal. He was killed in prison in October, 12 years into a 29-year sentence.
In her new memoir Likeable, Cotton has opened up about the experience of learning of Watkins’ crimes at a time when she was still a regular presence on national radio and television.
She does not name Watkins, but writes about working at Radio 1 at the time that “a horrible news story that doesn’t involve me yet has a tenuous and life-altering link to me will be broadcast on my own radio show again that day.”
She went on to describe the “shame” she felt at work, adding: “I feel simultaneously glared at, stared at, yet utterly ignored by those in the office. Are they all talking about me behind my back? Or am I a narcissist for thinking that?”
She says she was forced to “shove down the anger, the rage, the sorrow and tears” during her broadcast on the day the news broke, and talks of the entire period as a time of “depression and a heaviness”.
Cotton announced she was leaving the BBC in 2015, later revealing that her departure was necessary as “it was literally ruining my mind”.
In 2024, she spoke about the reasons why she left the entertainment industry, citing her anxiety as one reason. “I’d get a week down the line and go, ‘I feel ill — I can’t do this,’” she shared. She also elaborated on her panic attacks, adding: “I got to the point where I just thought, ‘Why am I doing this to myself? Am I that desperate to be seen or heard?’”
Cotton continued, saying “I’ve learnt that I couldn’t do live radio or TV today for any money in the world. The thought of going on to someone else’s platform [with] that level of risk and judgment, and that element of the unknown? My nervous system can’t take it — it’s absolutely shot. Putting myself in that is like putting me in a pit of lions.”