Fatboy Slim has revealed his parents were in an open relationship – meaning he grew up with ‘two mothers and two fathers’ all living under the same roof.
The DJ and pop star – the ex-husband of broadcaster Zoe Ball – grew up in Reigate, Surrey, with his father Ronald Cook, an environmental consultant, and mother Ros, a teacher.
He tells BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs today: ‘They wanted to stay together for us kids, but they didn’t like each other any more.
‘So one day they stopped rowing and just had other partners. They were in an open relationship, living in the same house.’
He says he did not speak about the arrangement while his parents were alive, but added: ‘We thought it was normal. It was only when we talked to other people who said, ‘Isn’t that weird?’
The DJ is also known as Norman Cook – but his real birth name is Quentin. ‘When I asked my parents, ‘Why did you call me Quentin?’, they went, ‘It was the 60s.’
It came from the Latin ‘quintus’, meaning fifth, because he was the fifth member of the family, but he explained: ‘Before Quentin Tarantino… the only Quentin in people’s consciousness was England’s most celebrated homosexual, Quentin Crisp, so being named the same name as him going through school was… I got a lot of flak.’
When he began his music career, he decided: ‘I just wanted a really normal name. So Normal Norman just had a good ring to it.’
Cook, went to Reigate Grammar School alongside Sir Keir Starmer, but never imagined his classmate would one day lead the country,.
Fatboy Slim (R) credits ex-wife Zoe Ball (L) for his sobriety. Zoe Ball and Norman Cook pictured attending the UK Gala screening of ‘Man Up’ at The Curzon Mayfair on May 13, 2015 in London
The 62-year-old also discussed his battle with alcohol addiction with presenter Lauren Laverne and told how getting sober 17 years ago was ‘probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done’ – as he had relied on drinking to mask crippling stage fright.
Cook became teetotal thanks to Ball, his then wife.
He said: ‘I was kind of aware, for about a year before that, that it wasn’t so much fun anymore, and it was beginning to hurt. In the end, it was just one comment from Zoe, and I realised that she was going to leave me unless I stopped drinking.
‘All she said was, ‘Oh, Norman,’ but she said it in such a way… it was my wake-up moment.’
After rehab, he said: ‘For the first five shows, I was so paralysed, rigid with fear. I couldn’t dance, and I couldn’t enjoy [it].’
But his confidence eventually returned at a gig in Japan where ‘the crowd were just so beautiful’.
lDesert Island Discs airs on BBC Radio 4 at 10am today, June 28.
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