Yahoo News Zoe Ball has 'meltdown' on Taskmaster in mind-boggling task 'I have no dignity left'
Zoe Ball was one of the stars on Taskmaster's New Year's Treat special
What did you miss?
Zoe Ball's "meltdown" played out on the festive Taskmaster's New Year's Treat special. After the task, she told the cameras in jest: "I have no dignity left."
Previously, the 53-year-old said she had a "melt down" while filming a Taskmaster task involving a toaster which she put down to her attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). People with ADHD can appear restless, they can struggle with their concentration and act impulsively, according to the NHS website. The condition affects people's behaviour.
During the nail-biting episode, the presenter made no secret of her struggle to get to grips with the task where she had to get all of the items to "pop" as close to the timer as possible. The items included a toaster, a cat food dispenser containing popcorn, bubblegum, inflating a balloon and more.
What, how and why?
On Taskmaster, Ball voiced her frustration at trying to work out the timings to get all of the items to "pop" around the same time. "I've got too many things to press," she told the cameras while she was trying to work out how to make everything work.
The task grew more manic as it went on and when the balloon popped, a surprised Ball then screamed in response. At the end of the task, she left the pod with the two pieces of toast. She joked: "I'm taking the toast. I have no dignity left but I have two pieces of toast."
In the studio with the stars of the show, Ball looked back on the task and she explained she had tried to tackle it by making a list but it still didn't work out. Watching it back, she realised she had forgot about the cat feeder which didn't "pop" for ages after all the other items.
Her task took a total of 24 minutes, putting her in last place in that challenge. She was competing against Dragon's Den star Deborah Meaden, Steve Backshall, Lenny Rush and Kojey Radical in the festive special. TV hosts Greg Davies and Alex Horne judge the bizarre set of challenges. In the final task of the show, Ball threw an egg into the audience and Davies joked: "Jesus Christ, Zoe has gone into full meltdown."
Ahead of the episode airing, Ball said she had started to have a "melt down" during the task with the toaster because all the mathematical timings had begun to "hurt" her head. She told The Mirror: "I have 18 pairs of glasses and I will still lose them all… My brain is just all over the goddamn shop. So a particular task involved a bit of timing, which is maths, which is again, not a strength, I physically started to melt down. That did hurt my head."
Elsewhere in the interview, Ball openly discussed her experience of having ADHD and the humorous side of it. "I am ADHD," she explained. "My son [Woody] and I are both, we’re quite similar. I make myself laugh sometimes, because if I’m in a small space and I’ve got loads of tasks to do, I can cover so many iles. My family, they laugh because they’ll find things of mine in certain places and they’re like, ‘If you follow this, you’ll see what mum was trying to achieve.'"
What else happened on Taskmaster?
Dragon's Den star Meaden had a hilarious moment in the task when she couldn't work out how to get the toast to go down in the toaster. In a funny moment, she even tried speaking to the toaster like an Alexa and she told the toast to "go down". When it didn't work, Meaden then spotted the buttons on the toaster and realised her error.
