Carol Vorderman opens up on ‘holding people to account’ and ‘creating mischief’ during the weekends after stepping down from her radio show

Carol Vorderman lifted the lid on how she’s been ‘holding people to account’ and ‘creating mischief’ since taking a step back from work, during an appearance on Heart Breakfast on Wednesday.

The 63-year-old presenter stepped back from her Sunday show on Heart’s sister station LBC earlier this month after she had experienced ‘burnout’ and found herself in hospital overnight.

She admitted she had worked herself too hard after working seven days in a row for several weeks repeatedly and made the decision to step back, after getting her own show on the station last year.

Carol chatted to hosts Amanda Holden and Jason King about what she’s been up to since, in both politics and her personal life.

Amanda gushed: ‘We’re all excited about having you come in, because we were saying this morning, weren’t we, how much we admire first of all, your work ethic and everything else, everything you’ve done as a business woman. 

Carol Vorderman has lifted the lid on how she’s been ‘holding people to account’ and ‘creating mischief’ since taking a step back from work

Carol chatted to hosts Amanda Holden and Jason King about what she’s been up to since, in both politics and her personal life

‘But also, I love your strong opinions. I love that you don’t give a damn. I just love it because it’s a rare quality in this safe era that we are living in.’

Jason chimed in with: ‘Do you get to a point where you’re like “I don’t care!”

‘Literally,’ replied Carol, ‘Well, you know, on the political side, I’m like, I’m going to say it. 

‘I’m going to hold you to account as much as I possibly can, and it seems to have struck a chord let’s say.’

Approaching the subject of work, Jason asked the TV star: ‘Am I also right thinking you’ve started to say, “do you know what, I’m cutting down working a little bit more as well?”

‘Well yes,’ admitted Carol, ‘I was working seven days a week. And on LBC, I’m missing them so much! My Sunday show on LBC, it was different! 

‘But I live in Bristol, so I travel into London and all this all of the time, and I would prep it on a Saturday because, you know, I like data, I want evidence, I’m going to prove this is what they’ve been doing, you know I’m prep prep prep! 

But what it means is that people are like “oh, you work weekends, you get to take Monday and Tuesday off”. Yeah, like that happened, no.’

The 63-year-old presenter stepped back from her Sunday show on Heart’s sister station LBC earlier this month after she had experienced ‘burnout’ and found herself in hospital overnight

The TV star admitted she had worked herself too hard after working seven days in a row for several weeks repeatedly and has made the decision to step back

She added: ‘So it was constant and constant, constant. And then about a month ago I had a little like, chest tightening. 

‘So went to hospital. And I had all the heart checks and all of that, and no underlying issue. But I thought, you know what…I’ll go back to five days, yeah.’

The presenter cheekily joked: ‘And I found I can create a lot of mischief at weekends! It’s marvellous!’

‘Remember this is a family show,’ Amanda laughed in response.

Carol has been very open about the fact that she has five ‘special friends’ who she has relationships with – although she has previously said she ‘doesn’t do one night stands.’

In an interview with You Magazine last year, the TV presenter has said that it’s all working very well because doesn’t want to be in love and isn’t a jealous person.

Carol said her lovers are all single – and she said she wouldn’t mind if any of her lovers fell for someone else and moved on.

One thing that has surely connected Carol to a younger generation is her attitude to dating and her willingness to talk about it openly, if not in prurient detail.

The presenter cheekily joked: ‘And I found I can create a lot of mischief at weekends! It’s marvellous!’

Carol has been very open about the fact that she has five ‘special friends’ who she has relationships with – although she has previously said she ‘doesn’t do one night stands’

‘Oh yeah, yeah, my ‘special friends’,’ she said. ‘I’m continuing with that system and it’s working very well.’

There are five of them. She said: ‘One’s been a friend for 11 years, one for seven. My kids [Katie, 33, and Cameron, 27], know most of them.’

Carol admitted she relishes the independence and the freedom the setup gives her and says there is no problem with her partners wanting more intimacy than it offers, ‘as long as you’re all honest and have a good time’.

Following her recent health scare, Carol revealed that she is going ‘fine’ but told how she knows she needs to slow down for the sake of her health. 

Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, she told The Mirror: ‘I’m quite fine, I had all the checks and everything, but I can’t work seven day weeks anymore, so I’m going to center on social media a lot more in the future rather than travelling up to London all the time.’ 

The former Countdown star added: ‘I now switch my phone off for 12 hours a day. Like physically off. Tends to be over the night time hours.

‘But it’s quite a good thing, you know when you just have it by the bed and you just reach out. I’ll just have a little look… Ahh, two hours later.’

Carol informed her fans of her decision to quit her radio show earlier this month, telling her Instagram followers: ‘Hello, I’ve got some news to share with you.

Carol was heartbroken to take a step back from her role at LBC as she said: ‘It pains me to have to do it, but I’ve decided not to carry on with my Sunday show on @LBC’

‘After working 7-day weeks for as long as I can remember, I finally burned out just over two weeks ago and I ended up overnight in hospital.

‘Luckily, after many scans and checks, we know that I don’t have any underlying health issues whatsoever.

‘So, after a proper talking to from my family and my buddies, I’ve taken the health scare as a warning sign to slow down slightly and have decided to cut my work back to weekdays for now.’

Carol was heartbroken to take a step back from her role at LBC as she continued: ‘It pains me to have to do it, but I’ve decided not to carry on with my Sunday show on @LBC.

‘I’m fed up that I’ve had to make the decision, as the show’s been really lively and a total joy, with so many new callers from around the country and growing numbers of listeners.

‘The good news is that I’ll still be part of the LBC family (they’re a good family) from time to time – so stand by for more details.

‘Meanwhile, I’ll continue to cause trouble and carry on tuning into LBC too.’

Thanking fans and the team at LBC for their support, she added: ‘Thank you once again for your extraordinary support and to all my new friends at LBC – you’ve been amazing.

‘I’ll be continuing to make a lot of mischief and call out corruption and wrongdoing – that isn’t stopping but for now an ever so slightly less frenetic chapter begins. Love ya ’.

Listen to Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden weekdays from 06:30 – 10:00 across the UK and on Global Player