Begin Again Moments: Co-Parenting

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Begin Again with Davina McCall 11 min 3 speakers 3 chapters transcribed 2 months ago
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How did Fatboy Slim and Zoe Ball balance fame and parenting in the early years?

Davina McCall 0:00
Thinking about you and Zoe as parents, you two have got such, like, how brilliant to have such two great role models, but also not the norm, you know, you're both famous. Like, that's quite a mad thing for kids, isn't it?
Fatboy Slim 0:15
Yeah, I mean, well, that was quite a volatile thing, how our children would turn out. And we were definitely living the life, you know, when we first had Woody, we were immersed in...
Davina McCall 0:24
What was life like for you both back then? Chaos. Was it?
Fatboy Slim 0:28
Absolute chaos, yeah. Yeah, because I'd had this sort of thing of being a musician and everything. And then when I told my manager, he went, you do realise if you do so, the couple, he said, your life is never going to be the same. And I said, what do you mean? He said, like, because at that point I was sort of at the top of my powers. At that point she was doing the Radio 1 Breakfast show and going live.
Davina McCall 0:47
I mean, you were both mega.
Fatboy Slim 0:47
And it's like, put you two together. It's like, this is going to be, you know, and, you know, the whole tabloid thing, which I never really had before. I was just, I was only like band famous. I wasn't tabloid famous. And my manager said, he said, I don't know if it's going to be good or bad, he said, but your life is going to change, you know.
Davina McCall 1:03
I remember watching it as an outsider and the amount of public scrutiny from the tabloids was, it was relentless.
Fatboy Slim 1:12
Zoe is so, she was kind of used to it and she talked me through it, but it was, we were both partying a lot. and all our friends were partying a lot. We all were, I mean, you know. But also working really hard, you know. For the first couple of years, she was still doing the breakfast show. You know, we would be in clubs. People would go, so, are you in there? And we'd be like, two hours?

What challenges did public scrutiny and a party lifestyle create for their family life?

Davina McCall 1:37
Yeah, fine.
Fatboy Slim 1:37
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, we knew young you could do that. But we were, yeah, and then we were... So we were juggling both having very successful careers that took up a lot of our time, but also partying a lot. But going through it together was great because Zoe's a really good teacher. She was really good. She's really measured and she's kept me really down to earth. She's like, don't forget to say thank you to them. Don't forget we had this tremendous adventure together and kind of went to a place Went to a place probably that we never could have gone on our own. It was like our careers and our thing, some of the two parts where we became this sort of power couple. So she was, and still is, you know, we're still really good friends.
Fatboy Slim 2:21
And I think our triumph is to remain really good friends and parents, even though we're not a couple anymore.
Davina McCall 2:28
Can I just say, hats off.
Fatboy Slim 2:30
Well done for that. Because that is quite a difficult one. It's hard. It's quite a difficult one, but luckily we've sort of found a way. It was a bit awkward at first, but then we've got this rhythm where we're now, I think we're really good friends. We were probably actually better friends than we were when we were a couple. But we're very proud of the two kids we brought up and I'm quite proud of the parents and that we're as firm friends as we ever were.
Davina McCall 2:55
Sometimes, especially in midlife, you can get into a relationship and get a bit stuck and realise that you've slightly grown apart but you're just kind of coexisting and people get stuck there because you're paying a price whatever you do.
Fatboy Slim 3:09
Or when their relationship inevitably breaks up, you get acrimonious.
Davina McCall 3:14
Yeah.
Fatboy Slim 3:15
And then you start playing games with each other and bitterness and grudges. And if that then starts rubbing off on your... job as parents then for me that's you know that was the thing we just said it's like whatever happens it can't you know affect the kids and everything has to be about them and but that doesn't necessarily mean staying together for the kids you know a lot of people just stay together I mean my parents lived at the opposite end of the house for the last few years of my life and it but yeah it's I think it's it's so important it's just getting over you know when you break up with someone that you've been

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