Always be nice, always be kind
The This Morning presenter talks to Hannah Britt about diversity on TV, dealing with trolls and why she’ll always be guided by her beloved mum’s words of wisdom
I’m just not used to being interviewed – normally it’s me asking the questions,” laughs Alison Hammond, warm smile in place and curls cascading over her shoulders. “I actually think I’m quite boring,” she warns as we sit down to chat about her new memoir.
Of course she is anything but. After bursting onto our screens as a contestant on Big Brother in 2002, Alison has been a regular fixture on television ever since.
In her job interviewing A-listers for ITV’s This Morning, she left Harrison Ford in hysterics, fed chocolates to Hugh Jackman and played Connect 4 with Beyonce.
As we chat in a plush London office, 46-year-old Alison oozes self-confidence. Yet she says nothing could have prepared her for the abuse she faced when she landed the role as one of the main presenters on This Morning last November.
“I read the comments. Who doesn’t? If they’ve tagged me in I’m going to see them,” says Alison, who has nearly a million followers on Instagram.
“I’d never experienced racism so overtly,” she adds.
“People were saying, ‘You’re only getting this because of Black Lives Matter’. They troll me about my weight and I have had racist jibes. I don’t take it personally – but occasionally I respond.
“One said ‘should Alison be doing the main presenting job when she’s as fat as she is – a real bad role model’. And I replied I’d never tried or wanted to be a role model to anybody. That one really hurt me.
“Because I take up a little bit of extra space in the world, I don’t see why it should be an issue for anybody else. I’m a black woman who is also fat, I’ve got it coming all ways. It’s tough out there.”
Despite this, Alison says when it comes to diversity on TV, things are slowly improving.
“I think we’re trying aren’t we? I’m so proud of ITV – I think they’ve definitely embraced everything. Hearts and minds are being opened, and that is lovely to see.
“I don’t know if we’re going to get there, but we’re in a better place than where we were a few years ago.” Alison, who is also a regular on Loose Women, is thankful things have changed since the start of her career. “I was watching the new series of Strictly on Saturday and you have Oti, Motsi, AJ, Judi Love – all these strong black women – and I’ve never seen anything like it. I was actually jealous that I wasn’t on Strictly this year,” she says. “It was lovely to see representation. Beautiful women representing my culture, where I’m from.
“If I was a young child watching that it would have been amazing. That in itself was change, and I loved it.” Her glittering career has seen her enter the I’m A Celeb jungle (“grim... when I had to leave I was jumping for joy”), be proposed to by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson during an interview, and now she hosts This Morning with Dermot O’Leary – but she says the highest high of all came from her time on Strictly in 2014. “Everything is just happy – there’s glitter everywhere, you’re doing all these dances, the dresses, make-up, hair, your dancer is just doting on you.
“Sometimes to cheer myself up I will watch my Strictly dancing. I kept all my costumes,” she says. “Strictly was my mum’s favourite show and to have her daughter on it was amazing. That was a real happy time.”
Alison’s mother Maria died from liver and lung cancer in February 2020, and she says she was always inspired by her mum’s strength, hard work and determination.
“My mum used to work a lot – she juggled three jobs – her work ethic inspired me. I struggle to be still. I’m trying to get better at that now, to have moments when I do nothing. Or have a week when I’m just off, nothing planned, to potter around and be there for my son.”
Alison’s son Aiden, now 16, is following in his mum’s footsteps. “I hardly see him now because he’s got a job in the local gym, he’s off to college. He wants to be doing things all the time – it’s just the way we’re made. I see time as such a luxury.”
For Alison, who is single, life as a solo parent hasn’t always been easy.
“I never wanted to be a single parent. I saw how hard it was for my mum. It’s not really the way I wanted to go,” she says. “I’m so used to being on my own that I struggle in relationships. I’m independent and I have my own ways of doing things. It can be quite off-putting to certain people.”
Something Alison feels passionately about – especially in the light of the recent murders of Sabina Nessa and Sarah Everard – is women’s safety. “A lot of women don’t feel safe. The reclaim the streets campaign... we never had the streets anyway. It’s not about reclaiming the streets, it’s about just feeling safe.
“I don’t go out late. I think I could handle myself, but I can’t run very fast – I’m slow, they would catch me.
“We should be free to go and take a walk down the street.”
It’s something she’s conscious of as a mother to a son. “He’s a big boy now, a strapping young man. I say to him: maybe take your hood down, or if you’re walking behind a woman, cross over or go on your phone so she knows you’re not after her.”
As my time with Alison comes to a close, I’m struck by how open she is.
“It’s my mum,” she says. “She was my everything, my backbone. She still inspires me, how open she was, how loving. She never said a bad word to anyone. I’ve tried to take that from her – always be nice, always kind.”
■ You’ve Got to Laugh: Stories from a Life Lived to the Full by Alison Hammond (£20, Bantam Press) is out now. Alison and Dermot will present This Morning daily between October 18th22nd at 10am on ITV and ITV Hub.
‘‘ My mum used to juggle three jobs – her strength and work ethic inspired me