Arielle Free’s grandfather will see her DJ for the first time at Calvin Harris’s huge Hampden gig next weekend.
But the Radio 1 star reckons 84-year-old Grandpa John is only going because he’s a huge Scotland football fan.
The 34-year-old Stirling-born, Glasgow-raised presenter is supporting Calvin at his long-awaited return show at the national stadium next Saturday.
She said: “My Grandpa John has never seen me DJ before. It’s going to be such a moment.
“But to be honest I think the only reason he’s coming is he’s a huge football fan and when he found out it was at the Scotland international stadium, as he called it, he said he wanted to go. I think he’s going to see the football pitch, although there will be flooring over it. I can’t wait for him to be there.
“Hopefully he’ll have a nice space around him because I can’t imagine he’ll want to be down the front moshing too hard. But he’s fit as a fiddle and one of the fittest people I know so he probably will be.”
John is a big football fan but Arielle not so much. She admitted a Celtic-related incident on her Radio 1 show earlier this month went over her head.
A Scot called Tam was on her show to play the Beat or Repeat game in which the listener tries to dethrone the current on-repeat song with a choice of their own.
Glaswegian Tam picked Gerry Cinnamon’s song Belter but Ariella stuck with Layo and Bushwacka’s Love Story. Before he was cut off, Tam shouted: “A big shout-out to big Ange Postecoglou – we never stop!”
Arielle said: “I didn’t really have a clue about what was going on. It kind of went over my head.
“Next thing I know I’m getting all these alerts saying I’d given the Celtic manager a shout-out.
“More people were angry I hadn’t played Belter. Sometimes because people know I’m Scottish they go for a Scottish act.”
She laughed: “I’m sometimes biased but not always.”
London-based Arielle still can’t believe she’ll be back in Glasgow next weekend playing to 48,000 – her biggest show yet after the 10,000 at Edinburgh Hogmanay last year – especially as she ditched her college graduation to see Calvin and is now playing on the same stage.
She said: “I still haven’t got over it. They are letting me play for an hour rather than half an hour because they know it’s my
home town.
“I’m doing a residency at Hi Ibiza each Friday and last week popped in to see Calvin at his Ushuaia residency which is opposite. He’s just got bangers for days.
“People in Hampden are going to lose their minds it’s one of the best DJ gigs I’ve ever seen.”
The next couple of weekends are going to be huge for Arielle, who was a Beauxbatons pupil in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and presented kids’ show Scrambled! from 2015 to 2018.
She presents the weekday early breakfast show on Radio 1 and co-presents the Love Island podcast The Morning After.
Tomorrow she gets her biggest TV gig to date – fronting the second series of ITV2’s Apocalypse Wow.
She will also be “going home” to Glastonbury, DJing at the festival for the first time tonight for Radio 1 Dance and tomorrow on The Greenpeace Stage and hosting the festival’s West Holts Stage until Sunday which features Little Simz and Roisin Murphy.
She said: “Glastonbury is huge for me. It’s where I was conceived. it means a lot to me. This year is going to be special. I’m playing for the first time and I’m very lucky to be hosting the third biggest stage.”
The Scot has a dream – to front the Radio 1 coverage. She hopes playing and hosting a stage, as well as being part of the coverage team for the station, will make the powers that be take notice.
While she is a favourite on ITV2 – which has long been a hothouse for British TV talent, with the likes of Emma Willis, Rylan Clark, Laura Whitmore and Joel Dommett all gaining experience on shows there – she isn’t looking to be the new Big Brother presenter, for example.
Arielle, who released her first single Soul Full at the start of the year, said: “Music is always my focus. It’s where my heart lies.
“My dream is to host Glastonbury on TV, or the Brit Awards.”
Apocalypse Wow is the perfect practice for both. Possibly the most out-there show on British TV, it sees a bunch of celebrities fight it out in the Torture Dome in a series which is part It’s a Knockout, part Celebrity Juice.
Slopping about in gallons of goo, famous faces like former world champion boxer Amir Khan, musician Tinchy Stryder and Ibiza Weekender’s David Potts compete to win money for charity.
Arielle had been due to be a contestant last year but Covid meant she couldn’t and has now taken over hosting from AJ Odudu.
She said: “Written down it sounds slightly more shocking than it actually is. It’s a lot of fun.”
The Scot recorded the six episodes over a week from 8am to 8pm while also doing her Radio 1 show. She said: “There was a glam squad who’d helped me not look so dead in the morning because I’d come off the breakfast show.”
While the celebs get battered and bruised, Arielle admitted she had a bit of a workout as well - trying to stay upright.
She laughed: “I’m quite short so I usually wear heels on set. But the ground in the dome is basically a soft mattress to cushion any falls so was really, really slippery and I struggled to keep my balance.
“It was a nice wee workout and good for my core. My calves were killing me after the first day.”
●Apocalypse Wow starts tomorrow, ITV2, at 10pm.
