BBC Radio 2 presenter Zoe Ball has revealed she wakes up most days with “awful headaches” due to a health condition which causes pain in the jaw joint and surrounding muscles.
In an Instagram post, she said she had a temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder, which affects the movement of the jaw, according to the NHS.
The 54-year-old announced earlier this month she was stepping down from hosting Radio 2’s Breakfast show after six years, with Scott Mills set to take over the slot.
Discussing her condition, she wrote: “I have TMJ and wake most days with awful headaches from tension & jaw clenching.”
Ball shared a photo of her face tensed before receiving treatment and an after shot of it more relaxed, saying she was “so grateful” to the clinic which has helped her.
Symptoms of temporomandibular disorder (TMD) include pain around your jaw, ear and temple, a headache around your temples and difficulty opening your mouth fully, according to the NHS website.
Ball revealed on her BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show on November 19 that she she felt it was time for her to “step away from the very early mornings and focus on family”.
The radio DJ, who took over presenting the morning programme in 2019 from Chris Evans, will host the show for the last time on December 20.
Mills, who currently hosts Radio 2’s weekday afternoon programme from 2-4pm, will begin fronting the programme from early January.
Ball took a break from hosting her show over the summer, returning in September, and in April this year announced the death of her mother Julia Peckham.
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 who was born in 2010.
Ball 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 the first female host of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show in 1998, a post she held until 2000, and she also co-hosted the BBC’s Saturday morning children’s magazine Live & Kicking alongside Jamie Theakston for three years from 1996.
