Fearne Cotton reveals Jesse Wood turned up at her house with a bottle of vodka when they first met

Fearne Cotton has recalled how her husband Jesse Wood turned up at her house with a bottle of vodka when they first met.

The TV presenter, 39, revealed the pair ‘did not eat a thing’ during the date, although they have changed their lifestyles since then as Jesse, 44, is now sober and the couple have recently both gone vegan.

Speaking on Jessie Ware’s Table Manners podcast, Fearne said: ‘My husband is now, and he’ll talk about this publicly, has been sober for eight years, but he wasn’t when we met. 

‘So he turned up at my house with a plastic bag with a bottle of vodka in and we drank that and we did not eat a thing. I think I had a couple of cigarettes just to wash down the vodka and that was me done. That was my meal that night.’

The couple have been vegan now for over a year and a half with Fearne admitting it has become ‘quite easy’ but she doesn’t know if they’ll keep it up forever.

She said: ‘Me and my husband have gone Vegan at the moment, we’ve done about a year. 

‘I’ve been Vegetarian since I was about 12 but I ate everything else and then about a year ago Jesse and I were like ‘shall we just try it and see how we go?’ and he went from being a meat eater to vegan.

‘Jesse is all or nothing, he doesn’t do anything by halves so he was like ‘yeah we’re doing it’ and I thought it was going to be like a month but we’re a year and a half in now and we don’t really think about it anymore, it’s just sort of become quite easy, I don’t know if it’s forever. 

‘So I’m really enjoying it at the moment and he’s really enjoying it, he’s getting a huge kick. We do make quite a lot of quick things or I’ll cook for us when I’m cooking for the little ones and then leave that in a pot and then reheat it when they’re asleep and we’ll eat afterwards. 

‘And I’m really eeking that one out because I know my kids are getting to the point now where I should be eating dinner with them but I really like eating dinner with Jesse at night on our own just having a chat, that’s quite selfish but I really like that time.’

Fearne and Jesse, who is the son of The Rolling Stones’ Ronnie Wood, married in 2014 and are parents to son Rex, eight, and daughter Honey, five. 

Fearne began her TV presenting career as a teenager on The Disney Club and later became known known for Top of the Pops, Celebrity Juice and her BBC Radio 1 show. 

However, the broadcaster made a decision to ‘gravitate away from that world’ in her early 30s as she started to feel ‘disposable’.

She said: ‘The first maybe even 20 years of my career, I think I subconsciously felt quite disposable and then later down the line consciously felt very disposable. Because you are. 

‘You know you can be replaced in an instance and your job will get done. And I think that became really tiresome and also I wasn’t built for it. 

‘There are people who have a really thick skin and can go ‘I don’t care if I was taken off of that job or if I wasn’t hired, It will be fine!’ 

‘Whereas I’m really sensitive. And I don’t think that that’s really conducive to me feeling great. So I think I started gravitating away from that world maybe in my early 30s.’

She added: ‘I grew up in a working class suburban situation, my dad only retired recently as a sign writer, my mum had about five jobs at any one time and I just loved going to drama club outside of school really and that’s how it all unfurled.

‘I just went to audition for anything that was going and then somehow managed to worm my way onto this kids TV show, so it was all a really amazing time at that age going from being a regular school kid to all of a sudden I’m doing this job that I’ve dreamed of doing and it was actually happening. 

‘Nothing exciting happened in Eastcote where I grew up, you didn’t even go into London! You know you’re in that weird suburbia where you don’t even go into central London because there’s no reason to and it’s expensive and you just wouldn’t bother but equally you wouldn’t go into the countryside so you were just sort of in suburbia.

‘So it felt very exciting to be going into London to film and to interview pop stars, it was a really exciting time.’

Fearne is turning 40 in September and is hoping she will be able to ‘do something’ for it provided there are no more lockdown restrictions in place.

She said: ‘It’s in September, so I’ll be hopeful that I can do something. But even pre-pandemic, I was sort of in two minds, is that a bit excessive just to have a massive party? 

‘Should I do something that’s a bit more impactful and poignant and like go and plant 40 trees somewhere, I don’t know?’

‘Maybe I’d have a party. Maybe I’d take my inner sanctum friendship group away for a night, I don’t know. I’ll definitely mark it in some kind of way and I’m looking forward to my 40s. I’m feeling really ready for it now. Bring it on!’

The TV star, who is stepmother to Arthur, 19, and Lola, 15, has been homeschooling her children during lockdown. 

She said: ‘One of them is at Uni, and then Lola who is 15, she’s just doing her own thing. And then Rex is wild…wild, he’s the eight-year-old. It’s impossible. 

‘And then Honey, who’s five, quite easy. So it’s mainly Rex….It’s impossible, it’s unrealistic, it’s really unrealistic to be doing it and to be trying to work and I’m a bit of a neat freak so if everything is really chaotic in the house I really freak out so I’m trying to keep everything looking nice….pointless. 

‘Trying to guide them in life and actually work, and it’s just so unrealistic, its bonkers.’