Fearne Cotton has revealed how she became a “sort of hermit” during a difficult period that left her “crippled with anxiety” and “debilitated”.

The TV and radio presenter, 44, underwent surgery in December 2024 to remove two benign tumours from her jaw, and shortly after announced that she had split up with her husband Jesse Wood, who is the son of Rolling Stones star Ronnie Wood, after 10 years of marriage.

The couple are parents to son Rex, 13, and daughter Honey, 10.

The former Top of the Pops presenter, who is now the host of the Happy Place podcast, told The Sun that she felt overwhelmed by “a snowball of anxiety” during this tough time.

“I was very scared of getting things wrong, like getting socialising wrong,” she told the paper.

“I built up a snowball of anxiety that could be triggered by just stumbling over a word in a conversation.”

“I could go to a party and then come home and repeat every word that I’d said on a loop, and I couldn’t sleep.”

She added that she “had panic attacks constantly”, and her anxiety meant that she “couldn’t drive a car, couldn’t do a lot of TV work I’d been doing”, leaving her feeling “debilitated”.

The presenter, who started her career as a host on CITV at the age of just 15, said that learning to adopt a less rigid approach to wellness, as well as learning “how to channel anger in a healthy way”, had helped her.

“If it’s debilitating to the point where you can’t do things, you’ve got to face things that you might not want to face,” she said.

Cotton admitted she was “having no fun” while she was focusing on wellness, and realised “if I go out and have fun, and I have a couple of drinks, yeah, I might feel a little ropey the next day. But worrying too much about this stuff is bonkers”.

She has recently returned to TV after several years away from the screen, co-hosting Landscape Artist of the Year, which will air on Sky Arts in 2027.

“I was really petrified about stepping back into that environment,” she admitted. “But more recently, I felt good enough to push myself out of my comfort zone and back into TV.”

“Before, I’d get so worked up, and go, ‘Am I doing a good enough job on TV? Will people like this?’”