Mariella Frostrup: ‘Best kiss of my life? It would make headlines’

Born in Norway, Mariella Frostrup, 60, grew up in Ireland and moved to London at 16. She worked in music PR and made her presenting debut on Channel 4’s Big World Cafe in 1989. She went on to host TV and radio shows on arts and current affairs, including Radio 4’s Open Book and Panorama. She co-founded the campaign group Menopause Mandate, and wrote Cracking the Menopause – While Keeping Yourself Together (2021). Her new podcast, with Peter Fincham, is Have You Seen?. She is married with two children and lives in Somerset.

When were you happiest?
During the first three months of the first lockdown. I was at home with my family and I was such a cliche: I was baking sourdough, making my own granola. It was an idyllic time.

What is your greatest fear?
Both my grandmother and my mother got dementia. My grandmother has passed away. My mother is in a home. Dementia is my biggest fear because it robs you of the very thing that makes life special.

What is your earliest memory?
From Norway, when I was a kid – I lived there until I was six. My father went to interview President Nyerere of Tanzania and came back with a box of exotic fruit – mangoes and pineapples.

What is your most treasured possession?
A beautiful Victorian paste brooch that was my Norwegian grandmother’s.

Who is your celebrity crush?
I’m torn between Stormzy and Kevin Costner.

What did you want to be when you were growing up?
A foreign correspondent.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?
The greatest thing about getting older is I don’t worry about my appearance very much at all. A blow-dry is precious when you get to middle age.

What is the worst thing anyone’s said to you?
The music journalist Paul Morley described me as bland.

What was the last lie you told?
I am always late and I make up pathetic excuses.

To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?
I am mortified that we went into Afghanistan, promised to liberate the female population and, 20 years later, dumped them in a situation as bad, robbing girls of their futures.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
My husband. He was late arriving, but we’ve now spent 22 years together.

What was the best kiss of your life?
I would not reveal it – it would be indiscreet and make headlines.

What is the worst job you’ve done?
I worked in a chicken factory in the Netherlands when I was 16.

When did you last cry, and why?
Reading a newspaper.

How often do you have sex?
Every Sunday morning.

What would you like to leave your children?
A sense of the world being full of possibility and it being in their hands to make it a better one.

What is the closest you’ve come to death?
I’ve had a few hairy scrapes as a scuba diver.

What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
A few zeros on my bank balance.

What has been your closest brush with the law?
In Zanzibar, my then boyfriend and I were arrested for illegally entering the country, which we hadn’t. It was around the time of 9/11. We spent 12 hours in a cell in a prison.