Maya Jama interview: ‘Trolling used to make me cry – sadly I’m used to it now’

If there is one person that’s cheered the nation up during this gloomy pandemic, it’s Maya Jama, the 25-year-old Bristolian presenter whose goofy charm, trademark candour and fizzing energy has been just the tonic we needed during months of sneaky celebrities and doomsday headlines.

She is, if you like, the UK’s answer to Chrissy Teigen: unfiltered and hilarious, more comfortable sharing a double chin selfie on Instagram than a pin-up shot, and who the paparazzi are just as likely to catch at McDonalds as on the red carpet.

Defying odds stacked against her – including tragedy, a father behind bars, trolls and industry double-standards – Jama has spent the last three years becoming a beloved fixture in many cars and sitting rooms, manning the decks at Radio 1 for two years as well as hosting everything from The Circle and Cannonball to Peter Crouch: Save Our Summer. She made her Netflix debut earlier this summer in Katherine Ryan's Duchess and will soon begin filming her very first (and yet undisclosed) film role, all the while launching a business empire of skincare products and racking up over two million followers on Instagram.

Often touted as the next Davina McCall, last summer many viewers hoped Jama, who is of Swedish and Somali heritage, would take on the hosting reins of Love Island, injecting the somewhat toxic show with a dose of the infectious positivity she has organically made her brand. This year, she was also offered big money to come on Strictly. But Jama politely eluded both, holding out, it seems, for something else.

“I’m not saying no to Strictly forever, it might happen one day,” Jama smiles coyly over Zoom from the sitting room of her beautiful new South West London home as several hair and make-up stylists flutter around her, while a pristine blonde wig is glued carefully to her head. “I love it, I love the idea of dressing up and dancing, I just don’t want to do it too soon. You only get one shot at Strictly.”

Jama has earned the right to be picky – she is one of the hardest working women in entertainment whose rise to the top of the media industry has not been without difficulty. Growing up in Bristol with her younger brother and Swedish mother – who works helping recovering addicts – weekends were spent visiting her father in prison, where he served repeated sentences for violent crime.

“From a young age you blame yourself. The police came and knocked on my door and I told them where my dad was hiding – he was hiding under a bed upstairs or something,” she explained at the time. Aged 12, she decided to cut ties with him, realising – as she described 10 years later in her Channel 5 documentary When Dad Kills, in which she meets other young people whose fathers are behind bars – that his actions were a choice.

First wedded to the idea of acting, Jama got to the final audition stage for Bristol-based drama Skins, but lost out on the part to another girl, and, after a terrible incident that involved her boyfriend getting shot and killed outside a pub, she moved to London to pursue a presenting career. Things were still tough, as Jama ended up living with a family member heavily involved in drugs. Jama felt unsafe, and would find her possessions go missing – including a camera she had saved up for to practise vlogging on YouTube. She eventually moved out to live with a friend, making ends meet by working three jobs in retail.

“I was working for free as a presenter for two years, and in a position where my last five pounds had to get me to and from work, and while everyone else my age was going out and doing fun things, I couldn’t afford it, which is probably why I love partying so much now,” says Jama, who, every year (bar this one), hosts an infamous Halloween party that has become one of the hottest tickets in town. “When my first paid job came up in 2014 to follow the Fifa World Cup for Copa90, they asked me to quit my job at Urban Outfitters. But I was so worried, like, what if I didn’t have anything to come back to when the presenting job finished?”

Jama took the risk, and, thankfully, more jobs followed: a radio gig at Rinse FM, as well as presenting jobs for Sky and MTV. “I was pretty confident back then, more confident than now actually, because no one expected anything from me. So I thought, well, anything I manage to achieve is a bonus. And, if this all f__ up, I just want to be a bartender, travel the world, and learn to throw balls in the air.”

It was 2017, however, when 22-year-old Jama noticed a gear shift. Specifically: after becoming the youngest ever host of the MOBO Awards, and then landing a prestige slot on Radio 1.

“That year a lot changed,” she says, the wig finally attached, allowing her to hop from her seat and wander around her house, in which, she tells me excitedly, she is soon to build a cocktail bar out of a giant wardrobe. “At first, people wouldn’t really know what I presented. I’d always have to explain what I did. But after I presented the MOBOs, and then got my Radio 1 slot, and I finally began to feel like a proper presenter.”

Now, Jama is one of the most in-demand presenters working in the UK today. It’s surely only a matter of time until she hosts her own chat show to keep the likes of Alan Carr or Graham Norton on their toes, and which would do well to revitalise a channel like the BBC by having Jama’s loyal and large young following come flocking.

When I mention last summer’s Love Island rumours, however, Jama cools considerably – despite having long been a fan. The show has been the centre of several tragedies in the last few years, with three former contestants and the show’s host Caroline Flack all taking their own lives. I wonder if perhaps the online bullying that seems to engulf anyone who goes near the show has put her off?

“It doesn’t put me off, but it makes me think differently. I have to mentally prepare for things in a way I didn’t used to. I just think social media freaks me out. One day, everyone loves you, the next day, they all hate you. And you know, it's always drama. You literally open your phone and you look and it's like, what's trending today? Who's getting told off today? And it makes me feel anxious, particularly in lockdown, because there are no distractions anymore. So you've got nothing else to do other than watch other people's lives and say things you would never really say in person.”

Jama is no stranger to trolls herself, and is known to regularly call them out online by giving them a taste of their own medicine – or a mortifying retweet, which will more often than not conclude in said troll deleting their profile.

“I have definitely got thicker skin throughout the years of trolling. If you'd asked me this, like four years ago, I would have said trolling makes me cry, But sadly I’m just used to it now. What’s even sadder is that we’ll often have a collective moment of kindness, with everyone telling each other to be nice to one another, and then two weeks later someone does something silly and everyone’s at their throats again. It’s so f__ up. I wish it wasn’t like that.”

One of the most infuriating types of trolling to come Jama's way is in reaction to her interviews with male talent – some men simply can’t seem to wrap their heads around the fact that a woman can work with the opposite sex on purely professional terms. From boxing star Anthony Joshua to rap star Headie One, Jama has been falsely romantically linked to countless men she has worked with. It must be draining, I say, trying not to rise to it, and to be made so unfairly aware of the way she interacts with men in the public eye.

“It’s ridiculous,” says Jama, who went out with rapper Stormzy between 2014 and 2019. “Looking back, when I was interviewing rappers, I would friendzone everyone so hard, calling them bro and doing things subconsciously that would make me seem quite gross, such as burping in front of them, simply so that there was no way that anyone could think I was flirting. And I shouldn't have to do that when I'm talking, especially when I was just 17 or 18 years old.

“After that I was in a public relationship, so people were quite respectful of that. But now I’m single again, it’s all over the place. As soon as I stand next to a boy people think I’m dating him. It’s just mad when I have so many male friends, that people think I’m not capable of having a male friend without shagging them!” Jama laughs.

“It really does annoy me though. The other day I put B Young on my Instagram story because I like his bloody music, and someone commented saying, ‘Oh she must be shagging him.’ What makes it even more awkward is that I’ve never even met or spoken to him. So I clapped back and said, ‘Yeah, cos it’s impossible to like a man’s song without sleeping with him.’ But then the next day the headline, ‘Maya Jama says it’s impossible to like a man’s music without sleeping with him’, was all over the tabloids. I was being sarcastic! You can’t win!”

She sighs theatrically, before breaking into a grin. “How do people like Orlando Bloom and Adele date in secret? That’s what I want to know. There must be some high level tricks I need to get in on. When I do end up dating someone, I’m literally going to have to give them media training.”

Another bugbear for Jama was the recent focus on her status as a millionaire – a fact trotted out by popular culture Instagram account The ShadeBorough, which then generated plenty of tabloid coverage. “It was so random for them to post that last week. I felt the angle wasn’t to celebrate me, but to piss people off, because we’re in a pandemic and people have lost their jobs. Why would you bring up how much money I’m making now? Why would you even look in my account now when you’ve never looked before?”

“To be honest, I’ve never felt comfortable talking about money,” she adds. “I remember when the whole gender pay gap conversation started and I began thinking, ‘Oh, god, I'm actually getting paid less than my male co-hosts.’ I wish I was a rapper or a musician sometimes because they can talk about it all the time. But for some reason when women do it, it’s not classy to talk about, is it?”

What’s clear, however, is that Jama’s pay cheque will continue to rise. Following her role in Netflix's The Duchess, filming on her film debut has been delayed until next year due to coronavirus. “I can’t tell you anything about it other than my character is shy, and it’s filmed abroad,” she teases.

Jama’s childhood interest in acting renewed after she attended Idris Elba’s wedding last year. “And I was speaking to people there, and I remember thinking, Idris is a DJ, he’s an actor, he has a company. He does everything. And that inspired me. I realised: why am I waiting to ‘complete’ presenting? Why don't I just try and you know, have a little go at acting, which has always been on my mind. And if it works out, great, if it doesn't, I’ll move on.”

Jama has also started thinking about her longevity as a presenter, and is carefully building up a business empire on the side. First to come out of it is a range of skincare masks, MIJ, that sold out within 24 hours after their initial release on Sunday.

“I’ve always wanted to be on TV, but it's not always the longest career depending on how it goes,” she says. “And I think it's also a bit unfair on women sometimes. Like, if I wanted to have a baby, I'd probably be out of work. So I wanted to have something that isn't to do with me, something separate I could work on that isn't just my face and who I am.

“And then if I ever want to disappear off the face of the earth, I can still have something that I'm passionate about. I might not want to be on telly forever. You never know what's gonna happen.”