Two months later, when Hammond thought her TV career was over, a This Morning producer who had been charmed by her eviction interview (with, coincidentally, a young Dermot O’Leary) offered her a segment called “Diet Camp”, in which she documented her weight loss over a six-month period.
She was later promoted to showbiz reporter on the red carpet, where she accidentally hit George Clooney in the face with a microphone. But This Morning producers found her disarming approach to the increasingly stale nature of celebrity interviews made for brilliant entertainment.
In 2017 she went viral for what is now considered to be one of the most unhinged celebrity interviews on TV. Greeting Blade Runner 2049 stars Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford with two tumblers of whisky despite the morning hour, she began with the frank admission that she’d never watched the original film.
Stunned, but won over by Hammond’s distinctive wheezing cackle, Gosling and Ford spent the remainder of the interview drinking whisky, singing harmonies and convulsing with laughter. Afterwards, the notoriously grumpy Ford was so delighted he kissed Hammond on the cheek and contributed to her 50th birthday video tribute a few years later. “At the time I thought the interview was terrible,” Hammond says. “I said to ITV, let’s bin it; I’ve got nothing.”
The video has since been watched 23 million times – This Morning’s most popular YouTube video ever – and Hammond now occupies the unique position of being personally requested by the A-list. “Oh yeah, they do ask for The Hammond, I don’t know why,” she laughs.
Raised by her single mother, Maria, Alison grew up in Kingstanding, north Birmingham, in a council flat that Hammond happily recalls as a “palace”. She was named after Muhammad Ali by her father Clifford, who sometimes worked as Ali’s bodyguard. Clifford was mostly absent from home – Maria discovered he was already married with children after she became pregnant – and so Maria was “a hustler and a grafter” who had multiple jobs, from casino cashier and nurse to usherette and Tupperware manager.
Hammond’s voice noticeably softens when discussing her mother, her “hero” with whom she spoke on the phone every day until her death from liver cancer in 2020.
Encouraging Alison’s ambitions of becoming an actress, Maria – who occasionally worked as a TV extra – enrolled her, aged 11, in the prestigious performing arts club, The Television Workshop. Then at 18, Hammond, who had been a conscientious and sporty student who loved rounders, ballet and tap dancing, auditioned for Wigan’s now-closed Academy of Live and Recorded Arts.
“In my audition, they said: ‘You do realise you’ll have to modify your voice, because you’ve got a Brummie accent,’ which meant they wanted me to get some RP lessons,” says Hammond. “I just thought, I don’t want to do that; I like my accent. In the end I couldn’t get a sponsor, so I couldn’t afford to go.”
That sense of not quite belonging wasn’t unfamiliar to Hammond, whose neighbourhood was mostly white, with a strong National Front presence. Her first experience of racism was a classmate telling her that “I didn’t realise elephants were black”, which she has said left her with PTSD and panic attacks. Her mother’s popularity, however, always made her feel “safe”, since she was often hosting Tupperware parties in National Front members’ homes.
I ask Hammond – who now lives on the outskirts of Solihull with her partner of three years and 21-year-old son – what she thinks of the increase in race-motivated hate crimes reported by campaign group Brummies United Against Racism. City Council leader John Cotton has also said he is witnessing racism reminiscent of the 1970s, when the National Front was active. Is Britain becoming a less tolerant nation?
“I don’t think racism will ever leave our system. It is what it is, and I’m cool with it,” she says. “I don’t call it out, but I know in myself when I sense it. It’s just something that you have to deal with as somebody of colour.”
Hammond has said she has “grown numb” to the amount of racist comments she has received on social media or headlines referring to her as “a black presenter” rather than by her name. Yet following the death of George Floyd in 2020, This Morning viewers saw a different side to the TV star, who was in tears discussing his killing by a police officer. She said it left her “disgusted to my core” and that while watching the footage, she “saw my brothers and I saw my son”.
