Zoe Ball’s dad blames trauma of mum leaving family for ‘self-destruct mode’ that caused Fatboy Slim split
Dad Johnny, the veteran TV presenter, said Zoe's cheating throughout the relationship was a 'cry for help' from a woman scarred by her mother's betrayal
THEY were famously dubbed the “Posh and Becks of the E generation” – but now the ecstasy has well and truly dried up for Zoe Ball and Norman “Fatboy Slim” Cook.
Following the Sun on Sunday’s revelations that “boring” Norman drove Zoe into the arms of a new toyboy lover, pals last night revealed that the couple have been at odds for YEARS.
They claimed party girl Zoe had “destroyed” her 18-year marriage with a “self-destruct mode” that she may have inherited from her own MUM, who walked out on the star when she was two.
As one source put it: “Zoe has a dangerous self-destruct mode that she has tried to keep in check for years, partly thanks to the way her mum behaved. But now she’s finally pushed the button.”
They said the couple’s problems stretched back to Zoe’s well-publicised fling with DJ Dan Peppe in 2003 which saw her and Norman temporarily split up.
She followed that up last December when caught snogging singer TayTay Starhz, 22, in a Soho nightclub - dismissed by friends as a “silly mistake”.
Her own dad blamed the Peppe affair on her picking up bad habits from her mother Julia.
Johnny Ball, 78, the hugely popular kids’ TV presenter from the Seventies and Eighies, said: “When she left for that silly DJ, I know exactly why that was. [Zoe and Norman’s son] Woody was exactly the same age as Zoe was when her mother left.
“She was thinking, ‘I’m like my mother, I’m going to let us all down’. It was a cry for help.”
Following Norman and Zoe’s split, Julia is about to literally come between the couple.
Long since reconciled with Zoe, she lives in the middle property of the three grand houses Zoe and Norman own on the same Brighton street, with the estranged partners living in one each either side.
Norman is said to be devastated at the split, not least at the humiliation of being branded “boring”.
But while embarrassing, it has come as no surprise to a man who became teetotal in 2009 after years of hard drinking and has admitted he is “dull”.
The DJ, who at 53 is eight years Zoe’s senior, admitted he had become “dull” at this year’s Camp Bestival festival where he told The Sun how he had struggled to keep his marriage strong at his age.
Norman, who found fame in Eighties indie band The Housemartins, told us: “It’s hard to maintain a relationship. It’s taken me 20/30 years to work out the balance of maintaining a marriage and family.
“Younger people who do it sacrifice their social life and everything. It’s the hours and the lifestyle.
“Sometimes when I’m getting up at half past one in the morning to go to work I’m wondering why people don’t just go out earlier.”
He added, revealingly: “It’s important for me to differentiate between Norman, who’s a responsible father-of-two, and Fatboy Slim, who’s an irresponsible party lunatic, to be honest.
“Fatboy Slim shouldn’t be left in charge of children and Norman shouldn’t be taken on stage because he’s a bit too dull.”
Friends said festivals were a particular flashpoint for the couple as he preferred to go in and do the job and then leave, whereas she wanted to stick around.
One said: “Every year at Glastonbury, Norman leaves as quickly as possible after his set finishes but she stays all weekend, caning it backstage with her mates.”
But they added the rows were worse in Ibiza when both were forced to stay together on the island.
Earlier in the marriage, Zoe had indicated she was fine with a more sedate lifestyle and even gave up boozing with Norman in 2009 after a party which ended in “total carnage”.
She added: “I sat sobbing, knowing if I didn’t stop I’d end up in a mental home. I called a therapist I’d been seeing and asked for help.”
For almost six years, the teetotal pair seemed to be enjoying a quiet life at home, with Norman only too happy to ditch all-nighters in favour of a newfound obsession with cookery.
The musician, who changed his first name from Quentin after being bullied as a child, opened Brighton seafront coffee bar Big Beach Café, swelling his personal fortune to more than £20million by investing in restaurants in New York and Brighton.
Explaining how he has swapped the “crazy years” for a life of “fridge management and being a responsible dad and husband,” Norman said: “We partied our t*ts off around the world and enjoyed every minute.
“I guess we were both overgrown kids when we met. We had wild times, bad times and now we’ve reached the best place ever.”
Zoe, who along with her mystery toyboy is seeking comfort from pal and former ladette Sara Cox - who in 2005 split from her husband, the high-profile DJ Jon Carter - quickly bored of it all.
In 2014 she revealed she was back on the booze after nearly six years, despite describing herself as an “I’m an all-or-nothing person” in the same interview.
It was perhaps no surprise, given that Zoe and Norman’s relationship started out as one big party.
Describing how they first got together in 1997, former Radio 1 DJ Zoe said: “We bumped into Norman and he said, ‘How would you like to not go to bed with me tonight?’ – meaning let’s go out all night.
“So we went into every club in Ibiza and I did the Breakfast Show the next morning on no sleep.”
The Nineties ladette and the superstar DJ – riding high in the charts with albums Better Living Through Chemistry and You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby – soon became a regular fixture on the party circuit.
And even when the pair decided to tie the knot at Babington House, Somerset, in August 1999, Zoe was famously spotted smoking and swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s on her way to the ceremony.
Indeed, easily dismissed as a girl-next-door type, with a background in children’s TV and her current role on BBC Strictly Come Dancing spin-off show It Takes Two, Zoe is anything but and thrives on trouble.
Following the fling with Peppe she said: “I wasn’t happy. And what I’ve always done in my past when life hit a rocky patch was just run from trouble into the next relationship.
“I’ve had so many boyfriends and that’s what happened if it ever got difficult.
“Norm and I met in Ibiza and lived this crazy party life.
“Then we had Woody and suddenly I was all settled down. I thought, do [we] know each other? Reality hit me hard when we started a family.”
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She gave some insight into early marital troubles when, just a few years after they had married, she admitted in an interview that Norman left her sexually frustrated.
She said: “There are times when I’ve turned up — da-da, here I am in my amazing underwear. But he’ll lie there for an hour and won’t notice because he’s watching the television.
“Or else, he’s like, ‘Oh, she’s wearing her full-on underwear, which means she wants sex - and I’m not in the mood’.”
In 2013 she revealed that she and Norman still regularly discussed infidelity, admitting that she had joked about cheating with Hollywood stars Mark Ruffalo and Ryan Gosling – or even comic John Bishop.
In return, she said, Norman claimed he fancied her co-star, Claudia Winkleman.
But now the jokes are well and truly over – a heartbreaking irony for Norman who collects smiley faces and even has one daubed on the top of their home in Brighton.
Confirming the news, they both took to Twitter to issue a joint statement, saying: “We have come to the end of our rainbow.”
Proving beyond doubt that not every rainbow leads to a pot of gold.