AJ Odudu says she often doubted whether she would ever make it in showbiz because TV bosses couldn’t handle her being a Black woman with a Lancashire accent.
Despite regional twangs being commonplace at the time, especially on BBC radio, the 34-year-old said she was initially held back because she refused to betray her Blackburn roots.
She said: “I found it tricky to navigate my way around a space that sometimes made me feel ‘other’.
“My accent was a big thing, but what was confusing was there were other regional accents – Nick Grimshaw and Annie Mac were on BBC Sounds.
“It was more that I was Black and northern, rather than just northern. It was hard for people to get over that. It was a lot being Black, female and northern all at once.
“It was tricky at times. I did doubt myself because I was essentially being told to not be me. But all you can do is lean on your support network.
“There are so many people who do see the good in you.”
Born in Lancashire to Nigerian parents, AJ is one of eight children and went into TV after graduating from Keele University.
Her big break came in 2013 when she was chosen as a presenter on Big Brother ’s sister show, Bit on the Side.
More recently, she’s appeared as a host on The Voice Kids and Strictly Come Dancing, the final of which she agonisingly had to pull out of after tearing a ligament in her ankle.
AJ and comedian Mo Gilligan, 34, are to front the revival of Channel 4 ’s The Big Breakfast this summer, after the pair successfully hosted a one-off special of the show for the network’s Black to Front project.
She told Red magazine: “I think bringing The Big Breakfast back as a regular thing is one of the positives we took away from [Black to Front].
“But there’s so much more work to be done. Change is going to take a long time. I don’t like tokenism, and I don’t think anyone should do just one thing, pat themselves on the back and think they’re done.
“We’re never going to reach perfection in this lifetime, but we should always be striving to make change.”
