Jo Whiley: The deaths of my close friends made me rethink my health

During a recent DJ gig in Grimsby, Jo Whiley fell over on stage. Despite spending decades presenting, this was the first time she had ever taken a tumble in front of her audience. It could have been mortifying. But the 58-year-old star has enough experience of live shows to know how to handle such hiccups.

“Actually it was funny,” she says. “You just have to go, ‘oh my God’. It’s much nicer to see someone being honest and vulnerable than trying to hide anything.”

It’s perhaps this approach that helps explain the enduring appeal of the veteran broadcaster, whose reassuring radio voice several generations of listeners have grown up with. From 1993 to 2011, her BBC Radio 1 career spanned the heyday of Britpop and beyond. She subsequently moved to BBC Radio 2, where she continues to present today.

Then there are the gigs, in which she plays Nineties anthems to crowds around the country, ranging from music fans in their late 50s “who went through Britpop and all the festivals,” to the children of those music fans, who show up with their parents. 

Having also fronted the BBC’s Glastonbury coverage since 1997, Whiley is the thread that connects us to a pre-internet music era, indulging her listeners’ nostalgia (“those [Nineties] songs stand the test of time”) while retaining her status as cool pop cultural godmother. 

So how does the mother-of-four keep herself fit and healthy for a job that’s so full-on? “I never get enough sleep.” Yet viewers haven’t failed to notice that she doesn’t seem to age. What, then, are her secrets?

I’m not the greatest cook but I’m trying to eat better

Whiley is a vegetarian, but she is the first to admit she is not the greatest cook. Nevertheless, she is “trying really hard to eat much better,” she explains when we chat. “We went to Thailand over Christmas because my father-in-law lives there, and I found I was eating so much sugar. It’s a very sweet diet there, and I’ve got arthritis in my fingers and hands, and every morning I would wake up and my fingers would be like balloons.”

On returning home, she resolved to quit sugar, take vitamins and watch her diet. Since January, she has been trying to eat more vegetables, nuts and pulses and cut out sweet foods. “It’s hard!” she exclaims. “You definitely get the crave in the mid-afternoon.” 

She and her husband Steve Morton, a music executive, also undergo health checks. During one of these, Morton discovered he had high cholesterol, despite being “really fit and healthy”. Preferring to avoid medication, he focussed on his diet and consumes Benecol yoghurt to lower it. 

My closest friends dying has made me health conscious

The Thailand trip wasn’t the only trigger for Whiley’s health kick. In the past few years, she has lost several close friends. “All our big players we used to hang out with have died. So we have to be the party hosts because we have all the kids of all the people who have died coming to our place. That’s a real downer but it’s the actual truth.”

It all happened alarmingly quickly: in 2021, her friend Simon Willis, a BBC radio producer, died of a brain tumour; another friend died of Covid and a third died of cancer, all around a similar time.

“They were the ones we used to go out and do an awful lot of fun stuff with, so all of a sudden you’re like ‘now what do we do?’” says Whiley.

“Honestly, it was a ridiculous phase of everyone disappearing within a very short space of time.”

Processing those losses has been “really, really hard”. Whiley adds: “You have your routine, ‘it’s Friday night so everybody will probably come round.’ And you’re just waiting, looking at the door, going, ‘oh no, he’s not coming round, no he’s dead, he’s not coming round any more’. So you have to fill your time…You still miss them like crazy but you have to work really hard at changing your life to fill those massive gaping holes that they’ve left. It’s been quite a tough two or three years, in that respect.”

Another recent loss is fellow Radio 2 DJ Steve Wright, who died last month at the age of 69. “He meant so much to everyone. The tidal wave of love and thanks to him was really touching.”

Her friends’ deaths have made her determined to do all she can to stay fit and healthy herself. “I think that’s why the diet change has happened and exercise routines have happened.”

I was feeling a bit feeble so I started doing weights

A few years ago, Whiley felt she was becoming “a bit feeble”, so started doing weights. She sees a personal trainer who prepares her for festivals, helping her get toned up with work on her arms and plenty of crunches. A keen swimmer, she is in the water three or four times a week, and goes running with Morton a couple of times a week. “I just love keeping fit. I find it really helps my head and my body. I feel stronger.” 

Whiley says she’s not a natural runner – “I’m one of those people who just runs around going, ‘I hate running’” – but she doesn’t struggle to complete a 5K and would “quite like to do another half marathon” to give her something to aim for.

Preparing for a gig requires its own routine involving pre-show stretches and, if possible, a swim, to limber her up. “When I first started [the gigs], I really hurt after the shows and I learnt I needed to get fitter and be more flexible. My shoulders and neck really suffered the next day.”

She compares being on stage to doing a Jane Fonda workout. “For 90 minutes I’m literally jumping up and down the whole time with my hands in the air.” 

Despite never drinking while DJing (“I’m too worried I’ll press the wrong button”), she still ends up with a feeling akin to a hangover afterwards. “Because your head’s moving,” she says. “I just wake up like ‘eugh’.”

A third vodka makes me feel horrendous

Like many midlifers, Whiley has found her tolerance drop dramatically with the advancing years. “I just can’t drink very much,” she explains. “It doesn’t take very much. I’ll absolutely have a couple of vodkas but no more than two. If I have a third I’ll feel horrendous the next day.”

When she and Morton throw parties at their home in Northamptonshire – a converted 18th-century barn surrounded by fields and farmland – she tends to be the one going around clearing up the rubbish while the party is in full swing. “I’ll get into my bed and listen to it all happening. It’s so annoying. I drink cider and vodka but literally only at weekends and I know my limitations.” 

It feels “unfair” because “my tolerance used to be so much better when I was younger,” she adds. “But I’ve just had to reduce it…because my head feels awful the next morning and I don’t enjoy that feeling.”

The upside of her waning drinking abilities is she is forced to be healthier. “I went through a phase and I look at photographs of myself [during that phase] now and can see the puffiness under my eyes,” she says. “There’s a whole bunch of years where I look at my face and just think ‘God, you really were drinking too much and you look really unhealthy’, and now I don’t get that.”

Gardening and swimming help me relax

Whiley has what many would consider a dream job, playing music for a living. But it’s harder than she makes it look. “It’s stressful,” she says. “I have things that make me very anxious. I do get anxiety quite a lot, so if I’ve got a big gig coming up I will go into a very bad mood for a few days beforehand because I’ll be worrying…No matter how many times you walk out onto a stage in front of people, it’s scary. It’s not a natural thing to do.”

While some are natural born entertainers, she does not class herself as one. “There are people who are introverts, they have to become another person [on stage], and I fall into that category for sure.”

To relax in her spare time, Whiley loves gardening. On a typical weekend daytime, she’ll swim, go for breakfast, meet up with her children somewhere, try and squeeze in some gardening and take the dogs for a walk. Her oldest child, India, 31, lives in London, “so sometimes we’ll go and see her”. Whiley and Morton are also parents to Jude, 25, Cassius, 22, and Coco, 15.

On Saturday nights, Whiley waits until 6.30pm or 7pm before having a drink. “Then I’ll be like, ‘okay, drink time,’ then food and watch television, unless we’ve got a party going on at our house…We never get invited to other people’s parties so we throw our own.”