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FORCE OF NATURE
How presenter and eco-fighter Anita Rani overcame sexism and racism to get to the top of her game
It’s the morning of her London Fashion Week modelling debut and TV presenter Anita Rani is contemplating walking the runway in a T-shirt screaming: “Stop F**king The Planet”.
“Do you think Countryfile viewers would switch off in their droves?” she ponders of the BBC1 show she’s hosted for five years, before biting into a cinnamon and raisin pastry.
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“I think I could get away with it. I kind of want to! I might come on and do something a bit outrageous.”
It seems as if the sustainable fashion label Vin + Omi that she is about to model for agrees.
“They did ask me if I fancied getting my boobs out, and I said I wouldn’t do that,” reveals Anita, 42. “No, that’s not happening. My parents would have a fit!”
Anita is a passionate environmentalist, something fuelled further by her fronting the hard-hitting BBC1 War On Plastic series with River Cottage star Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the next episode of which she’s currently filming.
FREE-SPIRITED
But if you think flashing boobs seems at odds with Anita’s wholesome professional image, you’d be right. A go-to presenter for the Beeb, she’s hosted some of its biggest broadcasting events, including the One Love Manchester concert and Last Night Of The Proms, and she even presented from Harry and Meghan’s wedding.
She frequently guest-presents The One Show. But woe betide us if we think we’ve got Anita sussed.
“It’s funny that people have preconceived ideas of you. I just think you only see a certain aspect of everybody,” says Anita, who was raised with brother Kuldeep, now 40, in Bradford, West Yorkshire, by parents Balvinder and Lakhbir, now in their 60s, who moved to the UK four decades ago to run a clothing business.
Forthright and free-spirited, Anita never felt pressured by her mum and dad to conform. As a teen, she wore “black nail polish and purple Dr Martens, smelled of patchouli oil and listened to Nirvana”, and spent Friday nights in a local pub sinking cheap vodka and orange.
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- Denim dress, £28, Asos -
“To this day I still can’t drink it because I’ve thrown it up so many times,” she laughs. And her party spirit endures. When she met her husband of 10 years Bhupinder – or Bhupi – at a warehouse rave in Hackney, they were united by a passion for dance music.
The couple are known among their close friends for their “epic” house parties at their home in east London, which operates a wild-sounding post-pub open-door policy.
“I’m good fun. You want to be having a drink with me, definitely,” she says. Not that abstaining from alcohol changes her much.
“I’m quite a hyper person. I don’t need a pint of personality to get me going,” she explains. Given her penchant for the dance scene, has she ever dabbled with drugs?
WAREHOUSE RAVE
“Well, you can step out of my front door and someone’s smoking a spliff and you’re stoned [but], no – never anything more. Just a drink,” she says. “I’m not out for the rave, I’m out for the music.”
Privately educated at an all-girls school where she “thrived”, Anita discovered a talent for broadcast at 14 when she secured her first radio show at Bradford’s Sunrise Radio, where her mum presented her own show.
Studying broadcasting at the University of Leeds and choosing to live in halls, rather than commute the 10 miles to and from Bradford, was another example of Anita doing things her way.
“Indian daughters don’t leave to go to university and they certainly don’t live 10 miles away. Now I look back and [think] it’s not rebellious, I’ve just got my own mind and that’s the message I want to put out to girls. You’ve got a brain. Use it. That should be encouraged.”
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British TV presenter Jameela Jamil, 34, spoke recently of being on the cover of a monthly glossy magazine, hoping it “will mean something to little Indian and Pakistani girls and girls of colour.”
Does Anita, whose celebrity profile was boosted by reaching the semi-finals of Strictly Come Dancing in 2015 (she also won the first series of The Great Sport Relief Bake Off), feel the same social responsibility?
“Absolutely. Never growing up did I see Asian women – not on telly, not on magazine covers not even inside one. They were non-existent. There’s no way I could have predicted that I’d be one of the few brown faces on telly, making all these programmes. I mean, Countryfile, the heartland of BBC1, making documentaries, travelling the world, covering magazines…
“Walking down the street, Asian families come up to me, give me hugs and tell me they think I’m doing a great job. There’s an Indian word ‘beta’, which means ‘child’. Older women will say: ‘Beta, you’re making us feel proud, keep going’. Strangers!” She points to her eyes, which are glistening. “I am amazed at my own life. I don’t take it for granted.”
'I'M A NORTHERNER'
A “naturally jammy, lucky person”, during her degree placement year in 1998, Anita spent six months working for ’90s BBC music show The Ozone before joining Top Of The Pops for the summer, where she interviewed Destiny’s Child, J.Lo and Eminem. Post-graduation, she presented Channel 4’s The Dogs Balearics in Ibiza alongside Dermot O’Leary and Jayne Middlemiss.
However, as a non-white, northern TV host, Anita says she has had to work harder than others to achieve her multifarious 20-year telly career.
“I’m a woman but I’m also an Asian woman and I’m a northerner – that’s a triple whammy. I’ve got three things that are different to most people who work in TV. People make a judgement about you the minute they see you.”
She’s naturally chatty and good at “debating slash arguing”, but she admits she failed to speak up for herself when TV chiefs asked her to justify why she should present documentaries that weren’t obviously Asian.
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- Necklace, £40, Scream Pretty -
After she presented some BBC programmes centred around India – a moving episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, a documentary about the 1947 Partition and a Bollywood series for BBC2, she proposed a follow-up about Hollywood and was asked: “Why you, Anita?” The series never got commissioned.
“For a long time you feel you just have to suck it up and get on with it because you don’t want to rock the boat, and women around the world will understand what I’m talking about,” says Anita, who has also called out “disrespectful” photographers who repeatedly mistake her for other Asian TV stars, including panelist Saira Khan, 49.
“I’m a feminist, so anything about inequality p**ses me off, bigots p**s me off – I’m not going to name anyone. Racism p**ses me off and sexism p**ses me off. There are quite a few people in TV I’d take down. I’m like Arya Stark from Game Of Thrones, I’ve got my list of people!”
She feels more positive about the future now there is a big debate around equality and diversity and getting people in from various backgrounds, from all walks of life. She has ideas about how to improve things further.
'RACISM P**SES ME OFF'
“More people in positions of power from different backgrounds, more women, more people from working-class backgrounds, more people from black and Asian communities. The power structures need to change, then everything else will change.”
Anita is equally passionate about environmental issues and although she is “definitely not a preacher”, she believes everyone should do their bit and open their eyes to the fact that we’re destroying our planet. Helpfully, through War On Plastic, viewers can learn practical ways to help combat the global epidemic of plastic pollution. There are currently over 5 trillion pieces of plastic in the ocean.
“Most people have switched from plastic carrier bags to canvas tote bags. I try not to buy things that are wrapped in plastic, I shop locally, I always take a water bottle with me and a reusable cup. I’m also trying not to consume as much as I used to,” says Anita.
She buys clothes from charity shops, swaps pieces with pals and “keeps wearing clothes for ages”, including today’s outfit – a pair of well-worn gold-studded Mulberry boots, black jeans and a “super-old Maje T-shirt” – such is her scorn for disposable fashion.
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One change she refuses to make, though, is quitting air travel to reduce her carbon footprint. In fact, Anita expresses sympathy for Daisy Lowe, Dame Emma Thompson and other stars who were last year slammed for flying to global eco-summits or supporting climate activists Extinction Rebellion despite still jetting all over the world.
“How else are they meant to get there? Row themselves? I’m not going to give up flying. My job is to tell stories and it’s the biggest privilege, but it’s really important that we understand the world that we live in. I’m about to make a series about India, I’m going to fly there and I feel alright about that. I don’t get people who choose to give other people a hard time when they’re trying to do some good. Anybody who shines a light on sustainability is doing sustainability well.”
Anita is priceless company. Perched on the edge of her chair, she speaks with the animated energy of someone high on life. She’s also bursting with entertaining celebrity stories, such as last year at the Chelsea Flower Show VIP day with her mum “losing her s**t at every single famous person” in attendance, including Dame Judi Dench.
“I said: ‘Be cool, Mum, be cool.’ She was not cool at all,” recalls Anita. “She walked straight over and asked for a photo. I was like: ‘Oh god, please, swallow me whole. Sorry, Judi, that’s my mother. But, thanks to my mum, I got a picture, too! So I was actually quite thankful she did it.”
WAR ON PLASTIC
Then there was the time Anita got starry-eyed hosting a panel talk with Sir David Attenborough. “He’s absolutely magical,” she swoons. “He’s in his 90s and the twinkle in his eyes is ageless. There’s a youthfulness, vibrancy and passion that I hope I’ve got when I’m in my 90s.”
It’s looking good so far. Anita doesn’t look a day past 30. She’s a slender size 8 and keeps herself fit with weekly sessions of running, yoga and kickboxing (her latest exercise craze). Her stay-young secret – “just don’t mentally get old” – sees her regularly playing the fool. “I dance around my house in my socks and play pranks on my husband. I’m past the 40 mark and I’m not bothered about getting older because it’s a futile pursuit. What’s the alternative?”
Anita inherited her optimism from her mum, who proclaimed that by “working hard” the world was hers “for the taking”. Right now, as well as hosting her podcast It’s Anita Rani and filming a new episode of War On Plastic, she is also recording BBC2 series Unforgotten, which reunites people who lose touch after being thrown together by historical events.
Anita has spoken before about prioritising her career over having children, in part hoping to show other Asian girls, many of whom are under pressure to have families, that they have the power to control big life choices. Then last December, Anita revealed she had endured a miscarriage 12 months earlier.
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“It was, honestly, the most cathartic experience,” says Anita. “One in four pregnancies end in miscarriage and so few women talk about it. It’s a bereavement that people go through and they’re calling for the NHS to give therapy to women who have been through it.”
Anita says “talking helps”, and she’s had a couple of counselling sessions to help process the “deeply, truly and crippling” sadness. Opening up about this part of her life and others was “liberating” and the response has been massive.
“I have a lot of young women who look to me and I can use my voice. I spend my life talking, I may as well use it for something positive.”
But when asked gently whether she feels ready to try pregnancy again, the shutters close.
'CRIPPLING SADNESS'
“I tell you what, when something happens, I’ll let everyone know,” she says. “I just don’t want to talk about it. It’s so personal, isn’t it?”
Through all of it, Anita has been supported by Bhupi, a man she describes by a list of glorious adjectives: “Funny, gorgeous, handsome, kind and thoughtful.” They got engaged within six months of meeting and share a relaxed attitude to marriage (“We spend time apart. He’s got his thing, I’ve got mine. We have fun together”).
Yet when we meet on Valentine’s Day morning, Anita realises she’s made a boo-boo.
“When we first got together, I was like: ‘Oh god, I’m never doing Valentine’s,’ and my mother said: ‘There will come a time when you’ll wish he had bought you roses and he won’t.’ That’s happened! This morning, nothing. He’s never given me a Valentine’s card and I’ve never [given one to him]. I stitched myself up.”
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In any case, the couple have romance nailed. They’re fans of date nights, getting “dressed up and meeting each other in town” for dinner, drinks or a trip to the theatre, one of Anita’s greatest passions. It’s why she reports from the Olivier Awards red carpet every year.
MOST READ IN FABULOUS
Gratitude flows through Anita’s veins. She’s lived in London for 19 years – last year, she moved her parents to the city to be closer to her and her brother – but still gets excited when she sees the River Thames. En route to her fashion fitting, she says she was on the Tube thinking: “The greatest place in the world is my patch!”
She adds: “This morning I was listening to all the bad news on the radio and thinking: ‘Oh my god’, then I saw a daffodil in my neighbour’s garden and that made me really happy. Even though we live in a world where everything seems so unsettled, you’ve got to see the little beautiful things.”
- Watch War On Plastic With Hugh And Anita later this year on BBC1.
The Last...
Book you read?
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. She’s incredible.
Movie you watched? Parasite. Unbelievable! I can’t stop thinking about it. The whole thing is phenomenal.
Box set you watched?
I’ve just binge-watched Succession on Netflix. Who isn’t fascinated by the uber-rich?
Time you cried?
When an older lady stopped me in the street to say she was proud. I seem to cry more than I used to.
Time you were drunk?
New Year. We went out in Bombay with our mates and were drinking champagne.
Whatsapp you received?
My husband, saying: “I’ve changed my mind about the no Valentine’s Day rule!” I might get him some chocolates.
Anita Rani gushes over windmill’s 'giant shaft' on BBC's Country File
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