Miquita Oliver - I Drank Half a Bottle of Wine Every Morning

0:00Bin men, blowjobs, arts and culture. Now we've got a podcast. And then 23, 24, I don't know what happened. Well, probably drugs and alcohol. I'm with Cootes. I make money. I'm on telly. I'm successful. I have a big house. And it all went. And then my boyfriend dumped me. And I would get up in the morning and drink half a bottle of white wine just so that I could get on the tube back to my house. This episode of How to Fail is brought to you by Dove Whole Body Deodorant. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. This is the podcast where every week I speak to a new guest about three times they think they failed a knife and what they learned along the way.

0:43Before we get started on this episode, please do remember to like, follow and subscribe so that you never miss a single conversation.

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1:59It would be a foolish person to bet against her. Oliver started her career as a TV presenter at the precocious age of 16 after leaving school without GCSEs. She co-hosted Channel 4's iconic Pop World with Simon Amstel, graduating to a regular slot on the channel's youth strand, T4. Oliver became known for her playful wittiness and clever, often intentional awkwardness that always ended up showing a different side to much interviewed celebrities. Perhaps her fearlessness on screen is to do with an unconventional upbringing. Half Scottish, half Antiguan, her mother is the singer turned chef turned TV presenter Andy Oliver, who raised her daughter as a single parent in the chaotic vibrancy of 1980s Notting Hill, where family friends included Nenna Cherry and Lily Allen.

2:52In 2024, Oliver and Allen launched Miss Me, one of the BBC's most successful podcasts. Oliver now hosts the twice-weekly blend of personal stories, cultural moments and discussions about mental health with Jordan Stevens. An adept broadcaster, an intelligent interviewer and, fun fact, an extremely talented skipper, Oliver could be forgiven for a touch of arrogance. Instead, when asked recently to sum up her life in six words, she answered, I got very lucky, very young. Makita Oliver, welcome to How to Fail. Elizabeth, I've never had an intro so long and in depth before. It was really good. There was so much more I could have said and so much I left out.

3:37Really? The incredible documentary you did with your mum about the Caribbean, which you also served as producer on. Yeah. loved every second of that. Yeah, God, that was such a turning point for both mum and I as broadcasters and as people, human beings. Tell me more about why. Well, that's one of those things that comes back to you all the time, which I love. We sort of went to do the show and I was like, goodness me, I'm going to come back so Antiguan. God, I'm going to feel so connected to that, completely forgetting that we're fucking African. We're not Antiguan at all. that's the Arabs and the Kerouacs I that's where we were taken and when you've when you know that academically that's fine but once you arrive and start to live that and feel that something changes in you but not immediately and additional things were happening like giving being given our DNA results and seeing like you know really plainly that we're Nigerian not just African we're Nigerian and West Bantu people and the Congo.

4:41And suddenly everything that's just words becomes a feeling and you can feel your ancestors. So it sort of changed everything, that show. And I've never been more proud of television that I'd made and that we'd made. It was a beautiful thing to watch. I hadn't intended to get this deep this quickly, but I'm just aware the way that you expressed that understanding of your heritage, the dipping into and dipping out of who you know you are and who you thought you were is the metaphor of the sea in so many ways. And I know that it was also healing for you, that trip, doing that show about the Caribbean in terms of the sea, because you went through something incredibly traumatic in 2004.

5:25What, the tsunami? Yes. Yeah. It's so funny because I forgot, not forgot, but I never discussed it and never think about it, truly, no nightmares or anything. and it came up on Miss Me like year one because Lil was talking about when keeps in the tsunami and the whole team were like, what? And since then I've talked about it a few more times and have actually had to face it in a very different way. It's weird. Trauma comes in so many different forms and I'm not afraid of the sea at all and there was a lot of healing with the sea and the Caribbean but I couldn't even tell you, I will go deeply into the sea.

6:03I attack the sea I love the ocean it's not that that was ruined for me I think it was just to inhabit such an intense feeling of fight or flight for such a long period of time I mean not long but like 14 hours of I might die any minute that I think that changed me thank god I had Simon Amstel because and we talked about it the other day he reacted very differently he was making jokes and I was like surely not here on this mountain as we wait for a possible other wave to come and sweep us all in Simon still went to jokes and I think when you're in real panic and real terror uh you all go to your safe places and my safe places be quite loud and panicky like I was like someone needs to save us someone needs to save me from this and no one could Simon's was I need to just make this funny so it was yeah it was it was a very very very strange experience that i'm glad i'm talking about now i'm actually doing edmr emdr emdr that's so good for reprogramming how your body responds to trauma the tapping yeah well no it's a rapid eye movement okay and and apparently the research is that if your brain is engaged bilaterally you can unstick things that maybe deeper down, gentler, in a gentler fashion, and may surprise yourself for what comes up.

7:32Like, it's quite terrifying because you're like, maybe I'll just keep all that down there. But actually, I was like, no, this is the year to unpick, to unstick. And it's been great. I really enjoyed it, actually. Of course you go straight in with the spinami. I'm so sorry. I actually didn't mean to do that. I thought we were just going to go, I was like, I have my fingers. It's like bankruptcy, but yes, the tsunami. I'm so sorry. Let's just do a tick. We've done that one. We've done that one. Moving on. No more trauma. Your driving test. Oh, God. I wanted to talk about how you are often part of an iconic partnership.

8:07So Simon Amstel on Pop World. We'll never forget that. Just the glory days. Lily Allen on Miss Me. Now Jordan Stevens. You are incredibly adept at structuring a conversation, but making it seem really informal and easy and including us into a friendship dynamic. Wow, thank you. No, it's a real gift. And I don't think it gets heralded enough because you make it seem easy. But I know that it's quite hard to do. Yeah. And I suppose I just wanted to say, you're really great at it. And you're the star too, is what I wanted to say. And I don't think there's a question there. But... Oh God. I think that I've always been very good at making the other presenter their best.

8:57I learned it very early with Simon. But maybe it's just because I understand. Or maybe I'm just very, very curious about the way people work and what they need. And I suppose I've used conversation to do that my whole life. To sort of make people feel safe. I learned it last year when I was when I everything you know was going very well in my life we just done Miss Me Live and something terrifying happened with a neighbor a next-door neighbor and I was suddenly in danger in my beautiful house and had to evacuate my flat and move to my mom's house and my auntie was staying in the spare room my nan lives there you've been there and so there was no space so I had to move to the sofa in the sitting room and I ended up being there for seven months and I had to do Miss Me from there with my nan coming in like oh hi Lily I was like no remember this is that thing that I like film you can't disrupt it and it was so challenging so Elizabeth like I felt like it was all happening again I was like no I can't I can't be losing everything again I can't that doesn't feel right or fair and Lily was going through this divorce we were a mess in 2025 and we just had to keep going and as you know you know when with with these things you it takes a lot out of you it's the most fun in the world but it also is it can be the hardest thing in the world sometimes when life is very real and you're talking about your life so i felt like all my shame was on show because suddenly i wasn't in my flat that i thought represented how far i'd come yes i was suddenly on in the kitchen at mum's and i didn't have all the things around me that I had built up to make my life feel like I'd changed it and done something and made myself proud um but I did it I did my fucking job every week twice a week did the research that even from the sofa and that's when I realized that I am really good at my job and I really I it's somewhere I can go and I just know how to do it it's I don't want to be too good Will Hunting about it but you know when he says Mozart he could read music and he could just play when I look at math I can just play for some reason Elizabeth when I went on that set when I was a kid I just knew how to play that idea and we're going to get more into it because it is relevant to one of your failures but living around lots of people and having to communicate with lots of people, even if you don't want to, I'm imagining was embedded in your childhood from a very young age, because you had this kind of broader community in Notting Hill, Labrack Grove.

11:47But then when you were 15, you went to live with your aunt and uncle, is that right? Yeah, I went to live with Nana because we lost everything. Our flat in Notting Hill, Paris Terrace, like Westman Park, we lost it. We had a housing trust flat for 14 years. So it was like our home and it was a beautiful, great flat. And that's when mum and Garth moved to Clapton. Garth was my partner. Garth was my stepdad, yes. And I was like, sorry, where? Like none of us had heard of it. I was like, I'm not going to East London. And bless them, it wasn't even a flat big enough for all of us. It was a one-bedroom council flat that Garth had happened to have.

12:25And they were going to sleep in the sitting room and give me the bedroom, which they've done a few times, actually, in our lives. Because we had a few shitty flats after we'd left Powers Terrace. and then the big move to East. And I think that's what was the beginning of my trajectory into my career because I moved to Nana and Cameron's and it's a lovely five-floor house in Primrose Hill, which I loved. But I was surrounded by my cousins. I lived with a big family, which I always wanted. It was so often just mum and I. And Cameron, my uncle, paid for me to go to school because I hadn't really been in school much.

13:00I was a bit of a mess and it sort of put me back together. and I think if I hadn't been pushed into this sort of involuntary independence then I might not have said yes when mum said that lady you met the other day wants to know if you want to audition for this music show I was like yeah okay I mean I don't even live with you anymore the world's always still let's go for it so yeah there was a real shift I remember there was a lot of people having conversations in small rooms that suddenly went out in the world and changed things whether that be like The Clash or Nana or even like, you know, like my mum was friends with like that violinist, Nigel Kennedy.

13:37And he was at our house playing a bit of violin. Then I saw him on TV playing violin. I was like, right. So you can, so these people are sort of talking about these things and then suddenly they're in the world and they're changing culture or making culture. Even if by osmosis, I saw that early. And I remember thinking that was very exciting. Love it. Do you know what I mean? It was like, right, you can do things. Yeah. Before we get onto your failures, Miss Me is renowned, rightly so, for its eloquence and honesty. Oh, yeah. I love that. It's so brilliant. You know I love it. Yes, I do. Is there anything that you ever regret having said on it?

14:19No, because, you know, that's the thing. Yeah. I remember, I've got two favourite memories at the beginning of Miss Me. One was us trying to... figure out a name for it and we were gonna call it like call me back please or something like that and then we were trying to get and this was like three days before launch or maybe like a week before launch we'd already done the whole photo shoot and everything we still did not have a name and then it was like don't you miss me and I remember I wrote it down in my notes like maybe don't you miss me did it and then Lil text me and just said miss me question mark and I remember screenshotting going shit I think this is gonna be massive I just thought it was the best name for a podcast I'd ever heard in my life.

14:59I loved it. It was like, it was just succinct. It meant so many things. And I loved that it meant, it was a nod very subtly and not all bait to me and Lily's careers and what we'd already done without saying, hey, we're back. It was just this little like, remember us? I mean, the first one was great. It was like the Listen Bitch Boys from the 90s and stuff. and I was like, oh, we've got something here. And then Virginity, the next one we did, Lily started, you know, going on about like, I think it's a patriarchal construct, da-da-da. And I was suddenly, I remember thinking, fuck, it might get a little bit too like negative and not like playful enough.

15:43And then I heard it back and I suddenly realised what it was, which was it was both. It was everything. And there was talk like, don't make it to Radio 4. And one of the things that really I had to fight for and I still do, which is like there's this idea that smart things or culture things are spoken about here and then blowjobs and, you know, sex is spoken about here and da-da-da. And I was like, no, bin men, blowjobs, arts and culture. Now we've got a podcast. Also a great title.

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18:15With Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So go make it one. Start your free trial at shopify.co.uk slash fail. Start your free trial at shopify.co.uk slash fail. A lot of people listening to this show have sat with something they've never told anyone. Not a mistake, not a bad decision, a thought that arrived uninvited and just kept coming back that made them feel like there was something deeply wrong with them. And because it didn't look like a failure they could talk about, they just carried it in silence. For millions of people, that's not a character flaw. It's OCD.

18:54Not the organising stereotype. Real OCD is persistent, unwanted, intrusive thoughts that latch onto the things you care about most, your relationships, your values, your sense of who you are, and bring enormous guilt and shame with them. And the more you fight the thoughts, the louder they get. The good news is that OCD is highly treatable with the right kind of specialised therapy. OCD needs ERP or exposure and response prevention therapy, which has proven to be the most effective treatment. Regular talk therapy isn't recommended for OCD and can actually make it worse. And that's where NoCD comes in.

19:32NoCD is the world's leading provider of OCD treatment and it's covered by insurance for over 138 million Americans. All their licensed therapists specialize in ERP therapy and will help you learn to take the power away from intrusive thoughts in live face-to-face virtual sessions. They also provide support between sessions when you need it most, so you're never facing OCD alone. If any of this sounds familiar, visit nocd.com to book a free 15-minute call with their team. That's nocd.com. Let's go on to your failures. your first one is bankruptcy good old bankruptcy the way that you put it to me I think is so revealing failure to believe I deserved the money I was making tell us about this and when you first became aware that you were making serious money I remember being at Nana's house um at the house I was just talking about and I was I remember because I have quite a photographic memory I I think I just always remember exactly where I was when I hear things.

20:36And I remember walking upstairs and my agent told me how much money I was going to make that year. And I was 20. And I remember thinking, Jesus Christ, I'm rich. It's not even like I was like close to that. It wasn't like I was like making good money and like it was starting to go well. I think I've been on TV for two years and suddenly I was rich. And that felt really strange because my parents had no money. and I was still living in my cousin Mabel's baby bedroom in Nana's house. That is Mabel, the superstar, pop star. Yes, right, that's Mabel. She very sweetly gave me her room when I moved into the house and moved into, I mean, she was only at three or four, but it was very sweet.

21:19And yeah, so I was a bit like, right, I guess I can do anything. And I had a really nice sort of year or two of really enjoying my success. I really did. I really, and Lil got famous around then as well. and I was like, look at us, this is all going very well, isn't it? And then 23, 24, I don't know what happened. Well, probably drugs and alcohol. And I just had a shift and suddenly it was all about trying to keep it all together. I guess pressure, the pressure of weekly TV. Yeah. And I suppose by then, 23, it's been like seven years. yeah of course seven year cycle about seven years and I was suddenly a bit like this is exhausting and I think that what's exhausting is being under pressure always just to like be on and to do your research and to to do your job well and be very very visible and suddenly people really like Pop World and it's really funny so you need to be funny every week and I think people forget that Like, Pop World was completely improvised.

22:27Like, we just talked, and it's like a series of 12 three-minute links every week that need to be of a certain level. That doesn't sound like much, and not to mention the VTs and all that, and it's like, actually, when things are really successful, it's fucking terrifying. Yes. I just stopped caring for myself and just thought that I should make sure everyone was always looked after, whether that be getting the bill, getting the um cabs my house for all the parties buying all the drugs buying all the alcohol I think it made me feel in control but it was sort of like not really how a successful person should live because I know now and I see someone going I'll get it I'll get it I always think it feels quite weak and I think I was being quite weak I didn't I should have stepped into my success in my power and kept the wealth for me.

23:20But I didn't know how to do that. I didn't feel like it was right. I felt like it had to all go. That's really interesting. And that idea of not feeling deserving of nice things. Have you ever heard that? It's very strange. Yeah. As you're talking about it, I'm thinking, I do often say, oh, I'll get this. Still. Yes. Me too. Yeah. And you're right that there's a bit of sort of guilt attached to it. Like, shame that you're doing well. Yeah, definitely. It's incredible shame, isn't it? We can even put it on our total, like, victories. Absolutely. I think I was a bit ashamed, which is absolutely ridiculous.

24:05I was 23 and had been one of the most successful young female presenters on TV for seven years. and I was black and from no money. And I should have been really proud of myself, but I just didn't know how to be. I just wanted to be something else. Yeah, it was very strange. I was so given, you know, so much celebration for the work I did and the work I was doing, but in my personal life, I felt very worthless. Did you feel that they were talking about you when you were given a claim? did it feel like the real Makita? Yes. Right. Yeah. I was really like, yeah, I am good. I am fucking good at this.

24:49But that was one thing. But then they would also call me dirty and fat. And also some like high level TV people brought me into their offices to tell me like, you know, you need to be like cleaner and thinner. And but the things they sort of had a point, I was becoming very kind of messy. and ungroomed. And I think the way I felt about myself and my personal life was starting to seep through about 24, 25. And of course, this is all leading to the bankruptcy at 27. But I didn't know anything about Saturn's return then. I wish someone would have bloody told me, it's fine, your life is meant to explode between 27 and 29.

25:30Let's talk about being on screen first off because you get this job at 16. Is the chemistry with Simon immediate? Yeah. It was the first time you met him at a screen test or something? Yeah, we did a screen test on East Castle Street in Soho. And I wasn't nervous. I have no idea why I wasn't nervous, but I just wasn't. And all I knew is that it was a new music show for Channel 4. And I kind of recognised him, and now I know it's because he was on Nickelodeon. We didn't like each other straight away, but I thought he was very interesting. I was very curious about him. And he was just kind of baffled by me.

26:08He couldn't understand how this child could be talking about like squat parties and going out later. He was like, what do you mean you're going out later? We just came from such different worlds. Thank God, because that's what made it so brilliant. And, you know, I'm not sure whether Simon and I's past would have crossed if we weren't asked to like host a pop music show together, which is insane because he's such a part of me now. That adventure together, it's just it feels like something like that I made up. It's just amazing. What was T4 like? Was it as fun as it seemed as a viewer from the outside?

26:45Yes. I mean, when I was presenting T4 with Steve Jones, I think, you know, he was so lusted after and seen as this kind of Ken doll. But he's actually quite dangerous. Like, he loves to swear. He's whip smart. And Steve made me feel safe and loved. and he would always tell me how good I was and he would always tell me that I'd made him better, which meant so much to me. I did. I felt him growing when we did T4. And, you know, travelling around the country, I used to get a bit pissed off because it was all summer and I really, really wanted to just have a break. And we'd also do, like, this makes me sound so, like, ridiculous.

27:28We'd also do, like, spring break tours and we'd go to, like, Australia for the month. This is when Telly had loads of money, Elizabeth. so we'd go to like the St Kitts we'd go to St Kitts to film like a teaser for like eight days but I have to say the last few years were really difficult so you were living on your own by this stage you were in your own flat yeah lots of different flats what happened like how does bankruptcy happen what's the first sign that you have right I come from a family like me and mum and Garth who I don't think have ever uttered the word tax like I didn't know anything about tax and I had an accountant who was fine but he had really big clients and I was one of his smaller clients and our correspondence was just a bit off which was fine and everything was getting paid but then there was this is because I was sort of falling apart around 25 then there was this tax bill coming up I remember and I was getting a bit worried about it but I was like no it's fine and then Jess was like T4's changing and I don't think you're going to be moving forward with them is that your agent yeah yeah and I was then I was like oh my god and obviously if you're not putting money aside for tax that's how that's how it gets you I mean interestingly now I think maybe some some discourse dialogue conversation if I'd asked my accountant for help but I just kept ignoring his calls and then I went to his office in like Harley Street on Marylebone and he said the word bankruptcy and I was like is it that serious and he was like well you don't have any earnings and this is coming up and I remember I called my mum and I said I think I have to go bankrupt and she bless her did what she does when things are really bad and she was like you know you're not gonna have to go bankrupt don't be ridiculous and I sort of believed her even though she doesn't know anything about tax or anything like that.

29:29And I was like, yeah, you're right. I won't have to go bankrupt. That's like, I was very aware that like Wesley Snipes had gone bankrupt and like Kim Basinger. That's what I remembered. So I was like, no, that's like what big American film stars do. Found I would have to go bankrupt after maybe four months of these letters coming and I just put them in this bureau. Don't look, don't look. And then I was, but I was also so scared about the fact that I was leaving T4. so I was just terrified and living in secrets and lives didn't tell anyone god I haven't been back to this place for so long like yeah it was so horrible I can feel that because it's just so weird because I just I share everything with my family and my friends now I hate secrets they kill they kill your soul and they can really like ruin your life and it was that that was so hard and my boyfriend didn't tell him and then luckily there was no fucking social media but I thought I'd got away with it because it had been six months and no one knew my mum knew I think I hadn't told any family and friends and the industry didn't know so I was like okay okay I'll just work on getting some more work and I was like DJing on like a tour for like freshest weeks like I was scared I was like what am I actually going to do um and then I got a call from my PR um and she said I'm so sorry it's gonna be in all the papers tomorrow and I remember being in Westfield and Shepherds Bush and just being like no no no no no no no no no no no and I think that it's like you know we all go through shit but it's just like these are huge massive public fall downs and I was only 26 and I was sort of like at home that night just like living with that pressure of like these this thing coming out that like some people jump off roofs about i was just like i don't even know how i'm gonna deal with this and i guess i just took it one day at a time but it was it was a it was a real unraveling it wasn't just i mean it's hardcore and like you know you have to go to a really big office and they're not nice to you i thought they'd be like quite kind yeah i thought they'd be like you're going through this thing yeah they were like you haven't paid the government this money like you're a criminal I was like right okay and I didn't have any support my accountant didn't come with me I was just on my own and they asked me where I lived and I lived in a two-bed flat on Talbot Road I'd moved back to West and they were like you don't need that so I had to move back into my mum's mum and Garth's which was a two-bed council flat in Clapton and I had to move into the spare room and I earned some money and they took it they just kept taking it and you know got quite an angry lesson from coots telling me I was no longer a member I was like oh this just gets worse now I'm not even with coots like these things that you just think make up who you are I'm with coots I make money I'm on telly I'm successful I have a big house and it all went and then my boyfriend and dumped me he didn't even find out he just dumped me he was starting to be mean to me about the fact that I wasn't paying for everything he was like why aren't you getting it and I couldn't tell him I've gone bankrupt so I was sort of trying I was borrowing money from my cousin like 40 quid here 30 quid there so that I could take him for dinner and oh I'll get it so it still felt like me god I forgot about that uh yeah so I felt like my whole identity had been stripped but thank Thank God it did have that.

33:06It was the greatest humbling I ever had. You've explained that so well. And what I imagine was a feeling of immense shame, misplaced shame. But that's a very heavy burden to carry. That's what it was, Elizabeth. It was so heavy. It was so heavy. People looking in the street like you've lost a limb. They're like, okay. Friends texting me like, is this true? People gossiping about it. I remember Lily and Grimmy taking me out to Nobu. Grimmy being Nick Grimshaw. Yeah. About two weeks after it had come out. I swear. Going out with them and like the paparazzi shouting it as we walked through. Are you too bankrupt for this?

33:54Or you ain't got any money or something? And then when we went upstairs, we sort of had lunch and they were sort of... everyone was sort of making jokes about it and I was like fuck I think I'm gonna be a joke for a while and figuring out how to settle into that figuring out like how to settle into this idea of being a failure yeah how did you get through it and what do you think you learn in getting through it oh definitely that like when you have nothing you suddenly gain quite a lot I was like, thank God my parents have this fucking flat. Thank God they love me and will let me live here without rent.

34:34Thank God we look after each other like that in this family. My mum calls it the floating tenner. When they were younger and everyone had no money, Nana would be like, I've got a tenner. And then its mum, Viv, would be like, has anyone got that tenner? Whether that be 50 quid or 2 quid, it was like the floating tenner. And they floated me. They floated, floating tenured me. The whole family did. And, you know, the cliche is true. I found out who really are my people. I hadn't been really close to my cousins in a long time. I went straight back to that. I started, like, asking people who loved me to help me.

35:11Like, my cousin Mackenzie's a trainer, and I was like, would you help me train for free so I can try and lose some weight to try and work again? And he trained me for free for months. Oh, my God, I forgot he did that. Oh, Makita. And I got V-Festival from it. I was like, I'm back. It was like these little things, like I lost a stone, a bit more. And I felt, and I sort of like got a better weave. And I asked someone for a favour for that, so that I could go to this posher hairdresser. My main focus was get your career back, get your career back. And I, to be fair, was slim, looking good, back on telly, within a year, on Channel 4, hosting V Festival.