Alison Hammond has responded to the criticism of her repeatedly booking major presenting gigs and being a prominent face on TV.
The daytime star made her television debut in 2002 when she was a Big Brother housemate.
Unfortunately for Alison at the time, she was the second one evicted—but she never could’ve predicted the trajectory her career would have in the years to come.
Alison has since become a firm favourite in the This Morning presenter lineup. She’s also hosted The Great British Bake Off, appeared in I’m A Celebrity, taken part in Strictly, and, most recently, took over from the late Paul O’Grady at the helm of For the Love of Dogs.
However, her success has come at a price, with critics arguing that they are seeing too much of her now, since bosses are all so keen to book her.
As for why this is, Alison, 50, believes race plays a part.
In a new interview for The Guardian, the bubbly star with a famously infectious cackle was asked if she has concerns about becoming ‘overexposed’.
She replied: ‘No. If I need to rest up or a job doesn’t appeal, I won’t do it.
‘I’m good at saying no. I turn down 10 things per day, no exaggeration.’
Alison continued: ‘It looks like I’m on TV a lot, sure, but I stand out partly because it’s still not the norm to see a Black woman doing this. I don’t want to bring race into it, but no one says that about Davina [McCall] or Ant and Dec.
‘I’ve worked hard for 22 years to get here.’
She went on to address one troll in particular, who went viral on TikTok for saying she was ‘sick of the sight’ of Alison.
‘That woman on TikTok is allowed her opinion. It keeps me grounded,’ Alison reasoned.
Despite her raging popularity, though, she insists that she’s ‘not a national treasure’, even if the British meme Instagram pages and ‘hun’ culture would emphatically suggest otherwise.
‘I’m just me, doing a job that I adore to the best of my ability, trying to be better than I was yesterday.’
Raised in Birmingham, Alison was born to Jamaican parents, Clifford and Maria. Her mother died in January 2020 from lung and liver cancer, months before her father also died.
While proud of her roots, Alison previously admitted she ‘had to educate [herself]’ on Black history.
Consequently, she fronted an hour-long documentary titled Alison Hammond: Back to School in 2020, which saw her travel the UK to learn about key, often forgotten, figures in Black British history.
Having only really become exposed to and started learning about Black history herself in her twenties, Alison said fulfilling the project was ‘her duty’, both for her own son and other kids.
Also that year, This Morning viewers saw a different, more emotional side to the star. In the wake of George Floyd’s death and as Black Lives Matter protests took place across the world, she gave a powerful speech after being asked to do so by bosses.
‘Firstly, I’m a mother to a 15-year-old black boy,’ she told then-hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield, through tears.
‘So when I saw that image of George Floyd, I saw my brothers, I saw my father, I saw my son. I saw everybody’s son, and I was disgusted to my core. And it hurt me to the pit of my stomach.’
But in a devastating turn of events, Alison admitted earlier this year that she now feels ‘numb’ to racist comments.
While urging social media platforms to ‘take more responsibility’ in light of England defender Jess Carter saying she was the target of racist abuse during Euro 2025, Alison added: ‘I’ll be honest with you, I get that all the time. I’ve kind of become numb to it now. I have to ignore it all the time.
‘I’ve seen loads of comments that are racist towards me, and I literally ignore them. You become numb to it.’
Grateful that the likes of X didn’t exist when she was a child, she continued: ‘It really doesn’t bother me because I know these people are online, not the people I love. If my family were saying awful things like that, it would have a massive effect.
‘It really doesn’t affect me in the slightest. Even when people say awful things about anybody, it doesn’t affect me because I don’t know who they are.’
Alison has been known to hit back at tattling trolls on occasion, whether they be attacking her character or her appearance.
Last year, she clapped back at a derogatory message following her appearance on Channel 4’s Celebrity Bake Off, with one viewer branding her a ‘real nasty piece of work’.
Alison replied with: ‘Why is that I’ll be having a lovely day and then someone who doesn’t know from Adam writes such nasty message.
‘Don’t @ me keep Your nasty comment to yourself #bekind always.’
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