Vanessa Feltz says decision to leave BBC was ‘hellish’ and ‘absolutely terrible’

“All the time my grandchildren have been alive – they’re eight, seven, three and brand new – I’ve been jetlagged the whole time,” broadcaster said

Vanessa Feltz has described her decision to leave the BBC earlier this year as “hellish” and “absolutely terrible”.

The TalkTV presenter announced she was leaving BBC Radio 2 in July, where she had hosted early morning breakfast shows for nearly 20 years.

In a new interview, the television personality and broadcaster said she was exhausted to the point that she started turning up at the BBC studio at 4am on the wrong day.

The 60-year-old told The Guardian: “All the time my grandchildren have been alive – they’re eight, seven, three and brand new – I’ve been jetlagged the whole time.”

When announcing her stepping down, Feltz said she had to step down to “catch up” on a “decade’s deficit of beauty sleep”.

Feltz suggested that she became self-conscious about her age while working for the BBC.

“I was aware of women over the age of 60 suddenly biting the dust,” she said. “I don’t think that I would have been exempt from that at all.”

“It seems to be a casual culling and jettisoning of proper broadcasting adornments,” she added.

“And it feels as if that casualness and that callousness is applying not just to the presenters but to the audience. It’s like, ‘Oh, we don’t need you and we don’t want you. You’re too old, you’re too staid, you’re too middle-class, you’re too middle-aged.’”

Feltz joined TalkTV in September, replacing Jeremy Kyle on the network’s three-hour drivetime slot. TalkTV, which launched in April 2022, is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

The broadcaster said she does not feel self-conscious about her age in her new role.  “No one has referred to it at all,” she said.

“I’m 60. I’m Jewish. I’ve got a gastric bypass. They [TalkTV] haven’t said I have to be 23 with a certain leg length and a certain boobage.”

“Nobody has said, ‘Put a veil over the camera and some Vaseline because Vanessa’s coming!’ And I didn’t feel the same at the BBC.”

Helen Thomas, Head of Radio 2, said in a statement: “For almost 12 years, Vanessa has made her live weekday Early Breakfast Show her very own kingdom, and I’d like to thank her wholeheartedly for the thousands of middle-of-the-night starts she’s made to entertain the Radio 2 listeners.”

Thomas added: “On behalf of them, as well as everyone in Wogan House, I’d like to send Lady V our very best wishes for the future.”