Zoe Ball has revealed that firefighters rushed to her £1.5 million Sussex mansion on Monday after she accidentally left a candle burning in her empty home. The Radio 2 presenter, 52, recounted the incident on her breakfast show, saying she had become distracted while baking a cake and watching The Matrix.
Ball explained that she left the house without extinguishing a candle, which continued smouldering in the lounge. Her smoke alarms activated at 9:25am, alerting neighbours who called the fire brigade. 'Thank goodness! Otherwise I might have gone home to no home!' she told listeners.
The star thanked her neighbour Abs and friend Em for raising the alarm, and praised the Uckfield fire crew—Duncan, Joe, Cameron, and Steve—for putting out the candle and preventing a potential disaster. The property, a six-bedroom country mansion built by Russian aristocrat Baron Vladimir de Wolff in the 1920s, features a swimming pool, tennis court, and extensive gardens.
Ball purchased the home in 2020 for an estimated £1.5 million, after selling her 18th-century cottage in Ditchling. She previously owned a beachfront mansion in Brighton, which she sold in 2018. The presenter shares two children, Woody, 22, and Nelly, 13, with ex-husband Fatboy Slim.
