BBC star left bankrupt after drug and alcohol battle | UK News

BBC star Miquita Oliver has admitted her early tv success spiralled into habit and financial destroy after changing into “rich” in her early 20s. The presenter, 42, mirrored on the dramatic highs and lows of her profession during an look on the How To Fail with Elizabeth Day podcast, revealing how touchdown major TV jobs at a younger age modified her life nearly in a single day.

Miquita, who discovered fame presenting Popworld, T4 and later BBC Radio 1 exhibits, recalled the second she found just how a lot money she was about to earn.

“I remember exactly where I was when I heard things,” she said. “I remember walking upstairs and my agent told me how much money I was going to make that year, and I was 20. And I remember thinking, ‘Jesus Christ, I’m rich!'”

She explained the news got here as a big shock because she had grown up in a household without money and was still dwelling at her grandmother’s home in a bed room beforehand used by her cousin, singer Mabel.

Looking back, Miquita admitted she initially embraced her newfound success. “I was a bit like, ‘Right, I guess I can do anything.’ And I had a really nice sort of year or two of really enjoying my success.”

However, she said issues soon took a darker flip. “I really did. Lily [Allen] got famous around then as well, and I was like, ‘Gosh, this is all going very well, isn’t it?'”

She continued: “And then 23, 24, I don’t know what happened. Well, probably drugs and alcohol. And I just had a shift, and suddenly it was all about trying to keep it all together. I guess pressure, the pressure of weekly TV.”

Miquita has beforehand spoken brazenly about the financial difficulties that adopted the peak of her tv profession. In 2011, she was declared bankrupt after failing to pay a tax invoice before later rebuilding both her profession and funds.

The broadcaster has also just lately mirrored on another troublesome chapter from her early fame, breaking down in tears while discussing her former feud with fellow presenter Fearne Cotton.

Speaking on the BBC Sounds Miss Me? podcast with Jordan Stephens, Miquita admitted she had been “awful” to Fearne in her twenties after publicly calling her a “devil woman” in an interview more than 20 years in the past.

She said: “Basically when I was 20 I did something really awful that I was really ashamed of for a long time.” In 2005 she did an interview with NME and was requested how she would improve Top of the Pops, to which she replied: “Get rid of the she-devil Fearne Cotton.”

Miquita was sacked from her BBC Radio 1 gig as a direct consequence of the remarks.

She told Jordan: “I wasn’t very nice about her at all, I was awful about her, and I was fired from Radio 1 because of it. We didn’t like each other – I don’t even think she didn’t like me, but because I’d been so awful about her, I think she stayed away from me.”

Miquita said she later realised the pair had been pitted against one another by media coverage at the time, explaining that she had felt she did not match the mould of what a tv presenter “should” appear to be.

The pair have since reconciled after Fearne reached out with a supportive message on Instagram. Miquita described the exchange as “healing”, while Fearne later replied publicly: “Beyond grateful for how we’ve reconnected. Makes me very happy.”