Miquita Oliver: "I thought I hated you Fearne, I was actually scared!" Debunking female rivalry
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How did Miquita’s early rivalry with Fearne start and what fueled it?
Hello, how are you lovely lot doing? A massive welcome to Happy Place with me, Fan Cotton. Today let's go back to this summer's Happy Place Festival. I'm chatting to Makita Oliver.
I was terrified of fern. I thought that fern was everything a T V presenter should be. You're very beautiful with blonde hair and you're very slim. And I felt very black and overweight and that my hair wasn't right. And then the press sort of compounded that fact. So I was like, Oh, I hate fern cotton. It's fern cotton that I don't like. Because I was sc scared. The whole thing made me fearful. And that's me going to that deep darker place of why. Why did I feel like that? And then I had this like fucking revelation. I was like, oh my god, it was the press's fault.
Crikey, where do I begin with this podcast? This podcast, right? I feel so lucky. I've been doing this podcast for nearly nine years. And there have been plenty of moments where I've felt like an episode has changed me in some way. I've left it learning something. I've left it feeling better about myself. I've left it carrying less shame. Like whatever it might be. But this one. This one was truly healing. That could sound like really cringy, but I mean it in its in like the truest, truest sense. So the backstory, and we go into it a little bit, but for anyone that doesn't know the backstory, Me and Makita have been orbiting each other since like the late 90s. When I started in TV in about 97, I think she was like the year or a couple of years after.
And we were both young, up-and-coming presenters, often at the same events. Often we'd, you know, be it, I don't know what it would be like, the MTV Awards or whatever, be it all at the Brits. We'd sort of see each other from across the room, but we gave each other a wide berth. And I was aware that I was often the brunt of jokes on Pop World, which I felt not even upset about. I was embarrassed. I thought, oh God, I'm so uncool. That's why this is happening. And also, uh, Mikita said something in an interview about me, which I'll fess up, I hadn't read what the wording was until the week before the pod. I thought I better look. just to see why she got sacked from the BBC. And she called me a devil woman, which I actually think is hilarious.
Cause it's quite a nebulous term. It's not like she was saying she's a thick, blond, knobhead. Like it was it was nebulous enough for me to like not take offence now. And also, I hold no grudge, and this is certainly not an exercise in me highlighting these flaws on stage with Makita so that she has to repent her sins. I I don't need her to do that. Um I've fucked up many times in my own career. I've been mean to people. We all have. All of us have been shitty to other people. But what this did was uh this episode was allow us to bridge this huge gap that had been created because we massively misunderstood each other. So I went through all of those years. I mean, obviously not constantly. It wasn't like I was thinking about this every day.
But I went through all of a many of those years feeling like uncool, a nerd, too enthusiastic and not in the cool gang. Um And Mikita didn't think of me in that way. She saw me as something entirely different, which you'll hear in a moment, which was why we were able to bridge this gap. So last year, Mikita put out a video on Instagram saying that she had had a lot of shit from the press back in the day, and it had made her really embody the words the press were using to describe her. And I felt so sad watching that because I thought I felt exactly. Exactly the same. I've been called every name under the sun by journalists. Everything from, you know, like unsophisticated to journalists wishing my death.
And I don't uh mean that in a kind of frivolous way, like literally journalists saying they wish I was dead. Um and as a young person, it's really hard to just let that be water off a duck's back. I for years took it on board and felt Like a piece of shit, if I'm really honest with you, to the point where I sort of stopped doing telly. So I sent a true heartfelt response to her video to her via DM.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How did Miquita’s early rivalry with Fearne start and what fueled it?
0:01–8:06
2
What role did the press play in shaping their perceived feud?
8:06–16:22
3
How did both women finally confront the misunderstanding and reconnect?
16:22–24:28
4
What coping strategies did Miquita use to move from drinking to healthier habits?
24:28–31:07
5
How did therapy help them understand their own self‑criticism and shame?
31:07–37:17
6
Why did Miquita create a skipping‑rope business and how does it relate to her healing?
37:17–43:41
7
What practical advice do they give for repairing broken friendships?
43:41–51:23
8
How can listeners apply the lessons from this episode to their own relationships?
51:23–57:55
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Happy Place
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Fearne: “There are good eggs out there!” How to ignore the tw*ts and stay positive
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Fearne: Why your 40s are ace and how to cope with imposter syndrome
What if the universe is trying to tell you something? How to trust your intuition
Monty Don: Get out of your bubble! Immerse yourself in a new culture on holiday