Mystery surrounding Zoe Ball’s BBC return on Monday continues to deepen as it emerges she’s sold her £2 million countryside home

The mystery surrounding Zoe Ball’s return to Radio 2 continues to deepen amid her unexplained absence as it emerges that she’s sold her countryside home. 

The DJ, who is the BBC’s highest paid female star earning £950,000-a-year, has been on extended leave from her show since August 8, with Gaby Roslin and Scott Mills filling in. 

BBC bosses have been supporting Zoe, 53, through her ‘tough’ time and her Radio 2 return date had been scheduled for Monday 23 September after she was told to ‘take all the time she needs’ following the death of her beloved mother. 

However, her return back to the airwaves has sparked yet more questions as she’s now made a major life change. 

The Mail can reveal that Zoe has moved house in recent weeks, selling her ­beautiful countryside home in the idyllic Sussex village of Newick which she bought for £2,025,000 in August 2020. 

The Mail can reveal that Zoe has moved house in recent weeks, selling her ­beautiful countryside home in the idyllic Sussex village of Newick which she bought for £2,025,000 in August 2020 [Pictured, Zoe Sussex home]

She is understood to have upped sticks in August and moved to a townhouse between Brighton and Hove, close to her ex-husband DJ Norman Cook, the father of her two children, from whom she separated in 2016. They divorced in 2020.

Some suggest that the change is a ‘new start’ for Zoe, who has been single since she split from model Michael Reed last year after five-and-a-half years together. ‘Zoe obviously got fed up with life in the country and wanted to move to somewhere a bit more lively,’ said a source with ­knowledge of her new home.

‘She has become really engrossed in making her house just as she wants it and has been happily ordering furniture and buying bits and bobs to make it perfect.’ 

Indeed, Zoe was spotted at Brighton’s Churchill Square shopping centre on Wednesday, with one onlooker describing their surprise at seeing her.

‘Everyone has been wondering where she has been and then there she was, right in front of my eyes,’ they said.