Move over, Posh and Becks: Rising power couple MOLLIE KING and STUART BROAD reveal their secrets for handling pressure and how 'fate' brought them together
- The former England cricketer and pop star-turned-presenter haven't ruled out working together
- READ MORE: Inside the family life of England cricket hero Stuart Broad and his fiancée Mollie King - from 'pure elation' over their daughter's birth to supporting singer through devastating loss of her dad
They’re five years into their relationship, with a new dream house and a nine-month-old baby, Annabella, as well as a wedding on the way. Yet it feels as though Stuart Broad and Mollie King are still very much in the honeymoon period.
The England cricket legend and the pop star-turned-BBC Radio 1 presenter sit side by side on a sofa in an East London photo studio.
Broad laughs as he recounts the time King insisted they rent e-bikes on the way back from a Beyoncé concert, weaving through the crowds, and how competitive she is when they play Scrabble, while King teases him about his new-found singing voice: ‘I’ve heard you on the baby monitor singing nursery rhymes. You get all the lyrics wrong but the melody’s there.’
With Broad having retired from cricket in July, after the last day of the last Ashes test against the old enemy Australia (he prefers to call it ‘a change of career; I’m only 37’), they face the longest time spent together without being separated by cricket tours.
They’ve just moved into a new home in Southwest London. Frankly, they’ve never been more in demand.
Mollie King, 36, and Stuart Broad, 37 have been together five years and have a nine-month-old baby, Anabella
Broady and Mollie (Brollie?) are a power couple just coming into their pomp. The Sun hailed them as the ‘Posh and Becks of cricket’ this summer. They bat away comparisons and remain tight-lipped on plans for any joint podcasts or fly-on-the-wall documentaries.
However, King, 36, has quietly signed up to Satellite414, the same agency who represent Beyoncé and Adele.
‘Being able to spend more time with each other would be really exciting,’ King says about working together, ‘if the right project came our way.’
They were recently photographed together for a London Fashion Week party for Pepe Jeans and although their reported £21 million fortune may be well below the Beckhams’ combined £425 million, every Mr & Mrs Megabrand starts somewhere.
‘It’s exciting to see if Stuart Broad, who after all is a bona fide sports legend too, and former Saturdays star Mollie King can emulate their success,’ says Alan Edwards, the veteran PR who has managed everyone from David Bowie to the Beckhams.
‘There’s no doubt that when the worlds of pop and sport collide, funny things can happen – and they look to have as much chance as anybody of doing it.’
For now, the couple are immersed in parenthood. ‘I’ve never been at home seven days a week for three months in a row,’ Broad says.
He looks delighted at the prospect of cooking, putting the bins out and finally getting round to wedding planning.
He proposed on New Year’s Day 2021 at their favourite spot in Richmond Park, but Covid halted their marriage plans. Busy jobs and a baby further delayed them.
‘Mollie and Annabella played a decent role in my decision to stop playing cricket,’ Broad says. ‘I don’t want to be away for weeks at a time now.’
On the photoshoot, a barefoot King piggybacks around on her towering 6ft 6in husband, who later underarm throws foam make-up pads to a set assistant in the style of a former cricketer missing the day job.
Broad proposed to King on New Year’s Day 2021 at their favourite spot in Richmond Park, but Covid, busy jobs and a baby have all delayed the couple
When we meet, Broad has spent the weekend looking after Annabella while King was at Reading Festival presenting Radio 1’s coverage. Surprisingly neither he nor King appear sleep-deprived.
‘Being a dad makes me wish I’d appreciated my own parents a bit more and thanked them,’ Broad says.
Annabella is the kind of baby who wants everyone to wake up with her in the night: ‘She kicks her legs and smiles away,’ says King. ‘We try to ignore her but we’re terrible at it,’ Broad adds.
‘We’re both up, Alfie the dog’s up. I don’t have a clue what I’m doing, to be honest – you are making it up as you go along.’
Becoming a father has given Broad ‘the ultimate contentment’. ‘No offence, Mollie, but it’s a feeling I’ve never had; a love like no other. When I first held her, nothing else mattered and it was really cool.’
They’ve been out a couple of times without the baby, ‘and you appreciate everything more, even going on the tube’, Broad says.
Although he launched straight into punditry, commentating at Lord’s the day after playing his last match at the end of July, stopping playing professionally ‘was a really difficult decision. I discussed it with Mollie, my mum and my dad [the former England cricketer Chris Broad], and they told me only I could make the call. That was hard. People say follow your gut but I had no gut feeling. I didn’t feel it was 100 per cent the right call; I was 40/60.’
Broad knew he wanted to quit while he was ahead, before his body failed him: ‘I didn’t want to be lying in bed at night thinking, “I can’t do this any more”.’
However, he’s bowing out just as cricket is being reinvented. A few years ago, attendance at games was down and young people weren’t playing.
Along came England Test coach Brendon ‘Baz’ McCullum. Out went sludgy, slow-scoring, conservative cricket. In came fun, risk-taking ‘Bazball’, with lots of hitting the ball out of the ground.
Broad retired from cricket in July, after the last day of the last Ashes test against the old enemy Australia
Broad went out on a high, hitting a six and taking the final two wickets against Australia, still winding up the opposition and bowling at 80 miles an hour in his trademark bandana to the end.
The first person he told about retiring was the England captain and close family friend Ben Stokes. The night before he announced it to the world, he knocked on his door: ‘“Stokesy, it’s Broady.” He said he couldn’t answer because he was icing his knee. I told him: “I would quite like to see you.”
'As soon as I said that, he knew. Telling people was hard because it makes it real, but I must admit, when I told Stokesy I knew I could reverse it, because no one else knew.’
He will miss being part of the team, who have supported each other through tough episodes like Stokes’s career break in 2021 to prioritise his mental health.
‘In my dad’s era [the 1980s] there wasn’t even a conversation about mental health,’ Broad says. ‘When I started, you’d tear a hamstring and go to the physio, but if you were struggling mentally, you wouldn’t mention it to anyone; you would get judged.’
Playing in front of hostile crowds hurts. How did he handle hearing ‘Broady, you’re rubbish’ and worse shouted at him daily, usually from Australia supporters?
‘I’ve had it from such a young age and can smile at it. But the time difference on tours was difficult, it would mean I couldn’t call Mollie. I’d sit in a hotel room going over why I bowled so badly. You wake up the next day with your brain spinning.’
Since he was 25, Broad has worked with a psychologist. Each morning he writes down ‘three things I’m grateful for and three ways I want to see my day going, to hit the day with positivity.’
King first heard of Broad in 2010, when he told a journalist he fancied ‘Mollie from The Saturdays’
At home he is a problem-solver. If King feels her radio show has gone badly, he will logically work through why it hasn’t.
Despite them shrugging off the comparisons, the couple’s love story does have similarities to David and Victoria Beckham’s.
The then Manchester United star said he fancied Victoria when he first saw her in the Spice Girls. Similarly, King first heard of Broad in 2010, when he told a journalist he fancied ‘Mollie from The Saturdays’.
The same journalist later met King and asked her to send a message to Broad, who had injured his rib. She was on tour ‘and the girls were excited – “Gosh, someone fancies Mollie! Let’s have a look at him.”’
They went on a few dates, but their careers meant it was not to be. Broad had to fly to India and New Zealand for three months, while King went to Los Angeles ‘with the girls’ on a US tour.
‘How is that sustainable for a relationship?’ Broad says. She dated Prince Harry briefly and was in a relationship with the model David Gandy.
In 2018, after The Saturdays had broken up and Broad’s career had ‘calmed down’, they got back in touch. ‘I see it as fate,’ Broad says. King was sad that they didn’t stay together the first time around because ‘it felt like there was something there’.
That was despite King knowing ‘embarrassingly little about cricket. My dad hated to think what I would have said on our early dates!’ But she did her homework and now she’s been on Test Match Special.
The Saturdays on This Morning in 2011 : L-R: Mollie King, Frankie Sandford, Rochelle Wiseman, Vanessa White and Una Healy
‘You were starstruck by Aggers [the broadcaster Jonathan Agnew],’ Broad teases (he refers to himself and cricket friends like Agnew by nicknames – Broady, Wardy, Stokesy...).
Finding a new career after the breakup of The Saturdays in 2014 was ‘scary’ for King. ‘I’d stopped doing the thing I’d been dreaming of since I was six years old; it’s such a huge part of your identity. You have to be brave to start something afresh.’
MUSIC/SPORT ROMANCES
1995 Jamie and Louise Redknapp
The pair met through mutual friend Robbie Williams while Louise was touring with Eternal, who were supporting Take That on tour. She and the Liverpool and England midfielder Redknapp got married on holiday in Bermuda in 1998 following a whirlwind engagement. Louise filed for divorce in 2017.
David and Victoria Beckham
1997 David and Victoria Beckham
It was love at first sight for Posh Spice when she met David at a charity match at Old Trafford. Their £750,000 wedding in 1999 – with thrones for bride and groom – set a new standard in lavish celebrations. They now have a net worth of £425 million.
2010 Shakira and Gerard Piqué
While filming the video for the official song of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Shakira met FC Barcelona defender Piqué. They were together for 11 years and had two children before parting in 2022.
She says that radio presenting gives her ‘that adrenaline I hadn’t had since being in a band’. She hosts the Future Pop Show, playing new bands for whom it ‘means so much to be on the radio’.
But what’s the future of radio in a world of podcasts? ‘You keep people company: on the breakfast show, it’s farmers, people up early; in the evening they’re in the office or on the road. I love podcasts, but for me the radio still has that ultimate connection.’
She makes notes of things that come up in their lives that would be good fodder for the show: ‘You call them talkies,’ Broad says.
So, when are they going to get married? ‘There’s been so much going on, we don’t know,’ King says.
Sadly, her father, Stephen, will not be walking her down the aisle. He died a few days after Annabella was born last November, three months after being diagnosed with a brain tumour.
He worked as an accountant and was active, running three marathons. Broad asked him and King’s mum to be there when he proposed: ‘I knew you’d want your family present.’
‘The past year has seen the highest highs and the lowest lows,’ King says. She wells up.
‘I’m pleased that my dad got to meet Annabella. There are so many times when I know he is with us. He would be so proud.’
She and Broad both knew they wanted children. ‘Timing can be difficult with jobs,’ King says. ‘It’s not like when you’re young and think you can do things at set ages.’
With that, they’re off to pick up Annabella from Mollie’s mum.
A fine partnership: Broady and Moll, 37 and 36, not out.
- Mollie King is the host of BBC Radio 1’s Future Pop. Stuart Broad: The Autobiography is out 9 November (Hodder & Stoughton)
