Miquita Oliver has opened up about one of the most uncomfortable chapters of her early career, publicly expressing regret over the harsh comments she once made about Fearne Cotton — remarks she says ultimately cost her a job at BBC Radio 1.
More than two decades later, the presenter has reflected on the fallout with striking candour, admitting she carried shame over what happened for years.
But the story has taken an unexpectedly heartwarming turn.
Despite their once-frosty relationship, Miquita revealed that a simple private message from Fearne years later helped bring healing to a feud that had followed her since she was just 20.
“I did something really awful that I was really ashamed of for a long time,” Miquita admitted while discussing their complicated history on her Miss Me? podcast.
“I did an interview in NME and I wasn’t very nice about her at all. I was awful about her.”
She then revealed the consequences were immediate and significant.
“I was fired from Radio 1 because of it, so I lived in a lot of consequence.”
The comment that came back to haunt her
Miquita was one of British television’s most exciting young presenters when she rose to fame as a teenager on Popworld.
Her quick wit and fearless interviewing style made her stand out, and she later landed work at Radio 1.
But in a 2005 interview with NME, Miquita was asked how she would improve Top of the Pops.
Her answer was brutally direct.
“Get rid of the she-devil Fearne Cotton,” she reportedly said.
At the time, the remark became part of a much bigger public narrative surrounding the two young presenters, who were both building high-profile careers in British entertainment.
Looking back now, Miquita makes no attempt to defend what she said.
Instead, she has acknowledged that her words were unnecessarily cruel.
“I didn’t mean to be awful to her,” she reflected. “I was unkind and it wasn’t me.”
For Miquita, the consequences extended far beyond one uncomfortable headline.
She says she lost her Radio 1 position and carried the embarrassment of the episode with her for years.
“We didn’t like each other”
Miquita also spoke openly about the awkward relationship that followed.
“We didn’t like each other,” she admitted, before suggesting the situation may have been more complicated from Fearne’s perspective.
“I don’t even think she didn’t like me, but because I’d been so awful about her she stayed away from me.”
Their paths, however, were almost impossible to keep separate.
Both women were prominent young presenters working in the same television and radio circles, and their lives became even more closely connected when Fearne began dating Steve Jones, Miquita’s T4 co-host.
“I’d see her all the time,” Miquita recalled.
“We were civil but it was a little bit uncomfortable, but it was OK.”
For years, that appeared to be where their relationship remained: polite, distant and marked by an unresolved history.
Then came a message Miquita never expected.
Fearne’s private message changed everything
According to Miquita, the turning point arrived last year during an especially difficult period in her life.
After seeing a clip in which Miquita spoke candidly about the way she had once been treated by the press, Fearne reached out privately on Instagram.
The message was compassionate rather than confrontational.
Fearne told Miquita that what she had shared “resonated deeply” with her and thanked her for speaking openly about the experience, before sending her love.
For Miquita, the gesture carried enormous emotional weight.
“Then last year she sent me a message on Instagram when I was having a f*****g awful time,” she recalled.
Rather than holding onto something that had happened decades earlier, Fearne had chosen kindness.
“That message was really healing for me,” Miquita admitted.
The exchange appears to have finally closed a chapter that had remained emotionally unresolved for years.
Miquita responded warmly, particularly knowing that Fearne herself had been navigating major changes in her personal life.
“I sent her so much love back,” she said, adding that she wished Fearne luck with her “new chapter”.
“It was all love.”
From rivalry to reconciliation
The story offers a very different perspective on a celebrity feud that began when both women were still remarkably young.
Miquita was only around 20 when she made the comment that would follow her for years.
Now 42, she is looking back at that younger version of herself with considerably more perspective.
Rather than minimising what happened, she has acknowledged the hurt her words may have caused while also revealing how meaningful Fearne’s eventual act of kindness became.
It is a rare example of a long-running showbiz rift ending not with another dramatic public confrontation, but with a quiet private message.
And perhaps most importantly, Miquita says there is no longer any bad blood between them.
“So actually me and Fearne Cotton are fine,” she declared.
She even jokingly floated the possibility of appearing at Fearne’s hugely successful Happy Place festival.
“I’ll see you at Happy Place next year!”
Whether that unlikely reunion ever happens remains to be seen.
But after years of awkward encounters, career consequences and lingering regret, Miquita’s words suggest the feud that once defined their relationship has finally been left firmly in the past.
What began with a cruel comment between two young stars competing in the same intense television world has ended, more than 20 years later, with something far simpler: forgiveness.
And for Miquita, one unexpected message from Fearne appears to have meant more than she could ever have imagined.
