I am meeting former member of girl band the Saturdays turned Radio 1 DJ Mollie King on a Monday. She hasn’t had a great weekend. On Sunday morning she had such bad back pain she had to go to A&E.
“It was intense, but they gave me painkillers so it got a lot better,” she says. Is she now as high as a kite? “I wouldn’t say that, but at least I can get out of bed now without Stuart [her partner, Stuart Broad, the former England cricketer] having to push me.”
It’s not the first time she’s had these pains, which, she admits, are clearly stress-related. King, 38, has a lot on. Apart from hosting her weekday Radio 1 slot with Matt Edmondson, she and Edmondson have launched a podcast, Novel Idea. Plus, she has a new show on Channel 4, Family Budget Switch Up, teaching children about money management.
“I was always thinking, ‘Do people think I’m an idiot?’ From then it’s been ingrained in me”
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She’s also the mother of three-year-old Annabella and one-year-old Lilianna, and the family are in the middle of moving from their home in southwest London to somewhere bigger. “I had a couple of hours yesterday lying down, trying to relax, but it was hard for me. I have friends who don’t worry about getting back to work. I wish that I had that same kind of self-belief.”
‘It’s in my nature just to go, “You’ve got to keep going” ’
King’s career is testament to slogging your guts out. She spent seven years in the Saturdays, who sold five million records in the UK, barely attracting a whisper of scandal. She’s been at Radio 1 for eight years without showing up hungover à la Zoe Ball.
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In the spirit of Theresa May, I put to King: what is the naughtiest thing she’s ever done? She looks flabbergasted, then shrieks with laughter. “What a question. I don’t know. I’m not a skiver. I’m not very rock’n’roll. I’m somebody who is a really hard worker and I’ve chosen an industry that is notoriously difficult to get into, so I feel like I’ve always had to be prepared and dedicated to it. I’m so used to the grind. Maybe if I was able to ease off sometimes it would be better, but it’s in my nature just to go, ‘You’ve got to keep going.’ But it can lead to situations in these busy times when your body goes, ‘No! Enough’s enough.’ ”
With her Saturdays bandmates, from left, Una Healy, Vanessa White, Frankie Bridge and Rochelle Humes
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Drinking coffee in a restaurant around the corner from BBC Broadcasting House, King deals with cheeky questions with uproarious laughter followed by a firm shutdown. She’s engaged to Broad but her exes include the male supermodel David Gandy, whom she dated on and off for five years, and — briefly before that — Prince Harry, whom she apparently met at the polo in 2012, subsequently partying at the Sloane hangout the Bunga Bunga bar in Battersea, southwest London.
The prince was said to be “smitten”. So what was going on? “Ha ha ha,” shrieks King. Then, “I’d rather not go into that,” she says firmly.
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“Posh” is the adjective often applied to King, who speaks in ringing home counties tones, these days rarely heard on the BBC. “They’ve been saying I’m posh since the early days,” she says, this time not laughing, but with a nonchalant shrug.
From skiing to Saturdays girl
I’d put King down as more middle class. The youngest of three daughters, she grew up in Surbiton, southwest London, close to where she lives today. Her father was an accountant, her mother a doctor’s secretary and she attended the private all-girls’ Surbiton High School. She was dyslexic, so from the start realised she’d have to graft harder than her classmates. “I’d have this knot in my stomach, having to read in front of my classmates. I was always thinking, ‘Do people think I’m an idiot?’ From then it’s been ingrained in me.”
With her Radio 1 co-host Matt Edmondson — they also present a podcast, Novel Idea
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Having been spotted skiing on a dry slope by a coach aged 6, at 11 she became one of the youngest people to be selected for the junior Team GB squad alongside her classmate and future Olympian Chemmy Alcott. By 17, King was a member of the senior team.
King had to make a choice — between pursuing skiing to Olympic standards or finishing her A-levels. Yet she nursed another ambition — to become a pop star. “I grew up with my walls plastered with posters of all the bands — Spice Girls and NSync and Backstreet Boys.” So far, so normal. “But where I was slightly different is I took it to the next extreme,” King continues. “I’d write out tables — Britney Spears, Jive Records; manager, Larry Rudolph. Christina Aguilera, RCA Records… Everything was mapped out.”
She wrote regularly to BMG Records begging to do work experience. “They kept writing back, saying, ‘This isn’t something we offer.’ But in the end, they called the landline and said to my mum, ‘Your daughter has written to us so many times about work experience. We don’t offer it, but tell her to come in for one week, so we can just tick it off.’ ” King smiles.
Once in the offices, she saw thousands of demo tapes arriving daily only to be rejected, but nothing deterred her. “I already knew if I wanted this I had to go out and get it.” In this frame of mind, she spurned the chance of Olympic glory, apparently to concentrate on her A-levels. Yet once she’d bagged three As (despite her dyslexia), she deferred her university place so she could focus on pop stardom. Her father, in particular, wasn’t pleased. “He and a lot of people were like, ‘Are you sure about this?’ But I couldn’t not try.”
With Broad and David Beckham at Wimbledon, 2025
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First stop was auditioning for The X Factor, singing Etta James’s I Just Wanna Make Love to You. A few bars in, Sharon Osbourne cut her off and laid into King for her outfit — an innocuous pair of white shorts and a slinky silver top. “You’re dressed inappropriately,” she told her. King shrugs again. “It gave me an example of what the real world can be like.”
She joined a girl band called Fallen Angelz and tried again for The X Factor, this time making it to the second round before elimination. But reps from Polydor Records spotted her and asked her to audition for a new group they were putting together to follow in the wake of Sugababes and Girls Aloud.
Consisting of King, Frankie Bridge, Rochelle Humes, Vanessa White and Una Healy, from 2007 to 2014 (longer than the Spice Girls) the Saturdays ruled the airwaves with five top ten albums and 13 top ten singles, including the No 1 What About Us.
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Most of their predecessors had been embroiled in internal feuding and fights with management. The underlying narrative was always pretty puppets manipulated by a male-dominated industry. In contrast, the Saturdays flew the flag for harmony. “We had unbelievable experiences and I was able to enjoy them with my four best friends.”
Yet after seven years of nonstop touring and promoting everything from Impulse body spray to hair-removal brand Veet, the band — uncontroversial to the last — decided it was time for a hiatus. “We’d released the greatest hits album, done a greatest hits tour. At the end we said, ‘Is this a good time to do our individual things?’ ”
They’ve never officially split and don’t dismiss the idea of a comeback. “Well, it honestly was a magical time. But if it were to happen, I’d love it to be at a time when my girls were old enough to take it in and go, ‘Oh my gosh, Mummy’s a pop star.’ ”
King was 27 and if she’s ever been discombobulated, it was then. “It was like a relationship ending when you still love them but you have to move on,” she says. She signed a solo deal and released two singles. The first peaked at 90 in the charts; the second didn’t chart at all. A planned album was scrapped. It was the first time King had really faced failure. “I don’t look at it as failure,” she says. “It just wasn’t how I dreamt it would be. I don’t sit and feel sorry for myself — I’m very, ‘Mollie, let’s move on.’ ”
At the GQ Men of the Year Awards with Broad, 2023
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Strictly and Radio 1
Still, for the next few years she found herself in a kind of celebrity limbo. Then she appeared in 2017’s Strictly Come Dancing, reaching the semi-final. “I’d lost my confidence before that; Strictly brought me back to life.” She was in awe of the presenters, Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly: “The best of the best. I thought, ‘What a great career.’ ”
They’ve now quit, so is King up to replace them? “Ah, ha ha ha. Obviously, for any presenter, that’s the dream. But I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
Her new, wider profile helped King land the Radio 1 gig with Edmondson. In their podcast, Novel Idea, the pair take turns at writing a chapter of a murder mystery. “Our favourite thing is to go head-to-head with each other. I want to leave each chapter on a cliffhanger, to stitch up Matt and leave him in a position where he’s like, ‘How am I going to continue this?’ ”
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In the meantime, King’s bringing up a young family. She’s been with Broad since 2019, having briefly dated seven years previously. He retired in 2023 and is renowned as one of England’s greatest Test bowlers. She knew nothing about cricket when they met. “But I do now. I still remember how emotional it was when he bowled his last ball. Wow. I didn’t expect it to hit so hard but I was crying.”
She’s used to being a cricket widow — after Lilianna was born, he was off for five weeks to South Africa to commentate, leaving her with a toddler and newborn. “It’s a real juggle. I’ll put mics down at Radio 1 and be like, ‘I’ve got to go and take my girls off my mum’s hands.’”
The children still aren’t sleeping through the night. “My priorities are my family, then work; looking after myself is pretty far down the list. Stuart is very good at taking time for himself, saying, ‘Now this is my time. I’m going for a game of golf.’ I need to learn from that.”
Last summer, shortly after returning from maternity leave, she took two months off after a planned operation, the nature of which she doesn’t divulge. “The recovery took longer than expected, which is always difficult when you’re someone who’s used to being get up and go. It had its positives, though. I was able to spend more time with the girls.”
At the end of her 311-mile charity cycle ride in memory of her father, March 2024
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I’m surprised a nice girl like King isn’t yet married. “We do need to get married — it’s high up my priorities list. We want to do it soon, but it can take a while to prepare. I’ve dreamt of my wedding day since I was five.”
In fact, the reason they didn’t marry earlier is tragic. King was in the late stages of her first pregnancy when her father was diagnosed with a brain tumour. He died just three months later, a few days after she’d given birth. “It happened so quickly, out of nowhere. I was in the final stage of the pregnancy so it was incredibly tough. I’m so grateful Dad was able to meet my daughter and see me in this phase of my life.” (Two years ago, to honour him, King cycled the 311 miles from London to Hull — his birthplace — in five days, raising £1.3 million for Comic Relief.)
“I can’t bear to think about my wedding without Dad being there,” she continues. “Elements like walking down the aisle without him I still struggle with. There needs to be a gap so I can process it all.”
A former sportsman, a former pop star, beautiful children, impressive new careers. Are the Broad-Kings our new Posh and Becks — this time genuinely posh? “Ah ha ha ha. I’ll tell Stuart that. He’ll be flattered.” Somehow, I can’t see these two sitting on thrones at their wedding.
Mollie King and Matt Edmondson’s Novel Idea is available wherever you get your podcasts
Hair: Patrick Wilson at the Wall Group. Make-up: Celina Hannock using YSL Beauty and Nars. Main image: dress, rebeccavallance.com