Radio 2 Zoe Ball: Presenter of BBC Breakfast show signs off show for final time feeling 'lucky and loved' - adding she will be 'back in spring'
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Zoe Ball was upbeat as she began her final BBC Radio 2 breakfast show this morning (Friday 20 December). Speaking at the start of the programme, Ball teased with a few adapted lines of One Day More from the musical Les Miserables, saying: “Another day, another destiny, one final show from me, ZB – only joking I’m not going to sing, let’s have some Daft Punk.”
She then played the French electronic duo’s One More Time, followed by a message she read out from a man who said he was driving home for Christmas early so he could listen to her last show. Ball ended her show in tears once more with listeners hearing her sobs. The show drew to a close at 9:15am with a montage of Ball’s best moments which ended with those in the studio clapping and whooping.
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Hide AdBall was heard emotional as she said after “Do I love you, indeed I do as Frank Wilson says”, followed by the ‘Do I Love You’ by Frank Wilson song. She went on to thank all of her colleagues including security, everyone who has presented news, sport and travel, those who have looked after the show in her absences and her listeners.


She closed the show saying it has been a “real privilege to keep you company in your morning’s manoeuvres” and that she has had a “special intimate relationship” with her listeners. She thanked her listeners for “sharing me with your stories” and said there has been “much laugher, silliness, a few tears, and lots of singing”.
She added: “I’ll see you in the spring popping up here on air at Radio 2 for new adventures. I feel very lucky to have been here. It’s been very special, take care of yourselves, love you peeps, my top cats.” Ball closed her final show by playing the song ‘Keeping the Dream Alive’ by Münchener Freiheit.
Ball, the daughter of children’s TV presenter Johnny Ball, began presenting The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show almost six years ago in January 2019, taking over from Chris Evans.
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Hide AdShe announced her decision to leave in November, saying it was time to “step away from the very early mornings and focus on family”. At the time, she also said she would not be “disappearing entirely” and added: “I’ll still be a part of the Radio 2 family, with more news in the new year.”
Earlier in the week, pop star Robbie Williams told Ball on her show: “I just want to say thank you for your services so far to the entertainment world, to BBC Radio 2, to all that have gone before you and who will come after you. But for you in particular, you know, the transformative thing that you do, and the kindness that you exude, is important and has been important, and will be important to people’s lives, so congrats to you.”
From January, Scott Mills will take over the breakfast show and his previous weekday slot of 2pm to 4pm will be filled by Trevor Nelson. Ball took a break from hosting her breakfast show over the summer and returned in September.
In November, after she revealed she would be leaving, she announced she had a temporomandibular joint disorder, which affects the movement of the jaw, according to the NHS. Ball said she wakes up most days with “awful headaches” due to a health condition which causes pain in the jaw joint and surrounding muscles.
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Hide AdBall was the BBC’s highest-paid on-air female presenter in 2023/24 with a salary between £950,000 and £954,999, ranking her second on the list of top-earning talent behind Gary Lineker, according to the corporation’s annual report published in July. She was previously married to Norman Cook, known as Fatboy Slim, and the pair have two children together, son Woody Fred Cook, born in 2000, and daughter Nelly May Lois Cook, who was born in 2010.
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