She told Cotton her depression had become particularly bad at the start of 2023.
“Mate, I was in the flipping trenches,” she said. “I think I was burnt out, I wasn’t taking care of myself properly, I think I was a bit sort of overwhelmed by life’s weird – not weird, valid – injustices.
“I just wasn’t feeling great and I was in a bit of a negative headspace, and yeah I was really, really depressed mid-2023, and I took some time off of radio, and just had to have a little reset. And that’s when I decided I was going to leave my show, actually, at the time.”
Cotton, who has previously said she left Radio 1 because the job was “ruining her mind”, told Amfo she had also experienced “very, very low mental health in periods”.
Amfo also spoke about other factors behind her departure from Radio 1 earlier in the interview, saying she was determined not “to resent anything that that I do” in her job.
“I don’t ever want anything to feel like it’s being forced or like it’s a chore. And I wasn’t feeling that way, but I want to be able to listen to music as a fan always, rather than as a business,” she explained.
“I want to be able to talk to people on a human level, rather than thinking, I’ve got to get that viral interview clip.”
She quoted a comment that Annie Mac told her when she left. “She was just like, ‘Yeah babe, I’m just ready to do my next thing’.
“And I think that’s how I felt. I felt so completely satiated by it and I was like, well, I think there’s nothing new for me to do. I could carry on and do it. I could. But I think one thing I learned is just because you can do something doesn’t mean you always should.”