Fearne Cotton and Miquita Oliver finally address their 21-year-feud after Radio 1 sacking
Fearne Cotton and Miquita Oliver have buried the hatchet together 21 years after Oliver was sacked from Radio 1 over comments she made about Cotton.
Tension between the two presenters came to a head in 2005 when Oliver was asked by NME how she would improve Top of the Pops, and replied: "Get rid of the she-devil Fearne Cotton".
Now, the pair have sat down together on Cotton's podcast Fearne Cotton's Happy Place, where they discussed how their previous animosity had been amplified and stoked up by news media coverage which played on insecurities each of them had about themselves and the other.
"Me and Miquita have like, a really weird history, because of I think our jobs but also how society pits women against each other," said Cotton.
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Explaining the media landscape at the time, Oliver said: "This is early noughties press who were vile, ruthless, I would say kind of violent actually, with the language they used about us."
Both women started working in presenting at a very young age, with Cotton saying she had started at just 16 years old, while Oliver was 17 years old when she started on Pop World.
"We're in a really weird job for starters, where you become instantly exposed to lots of people that don't know you," said Cotton. "And I think it takes a very resilient mind to not be impacted by it. I know I was impacted by it negatively in all different ways."
Oliver opened up about how she felt that media coverage had exacerbated insecurities she had been feeling, including as a black woman too.
"I was terrified of Fearne, I thought that Fearne was everything a TV presenter should be, and how you looked, you were very beautiful with blond hair and very slim, and I felt very black and overweight, and that my hair wasn't right," she said. "And then the press sort of compounded that fact, so I was like, oh I hate Fearne Cotton, it's Fearne Cotton that I don't like, because I was scared."
Oliver described how she had a 'revelation' that 'oh my god it was the press' fault', adding that not long after this realisation Cotton had messaged her.
"I think the world was sort of bringing us together," Oliver said.
For her part, Cotton also opened up about how she had created her own impression of their relationship which was again rooted in insecurities she too had.
"There's this void between two people with zero communication, and all it is is assumption and a projection about who that other person is," said Cotton.
"So in my eyes, you were the coolest person out there, in the cool gang, and you hang out with the cool people, and I'm a nerdy, I've done kids' TV where I'm like 'hey! I'm wearing bunches!'."
She added: "I just felt like the biggest geek ever, and you're hanging out with Lily Allen and all the cool guys and I'm just this absolute loser."
The pair reflected on the 'void' between their own impressions of themselves, compared to the impression that they had of the other person, with Cotton explaining that she was worried that she is 'unsophisticated' and 'a bit thick', but Oliver saying that to her Cotton was 'unsackable' and 'threateningly good'.
"It's so weird what a bit of conversation does," said Oliver.
Kit Roberts