Susan Gray 

Ade Adepitan: ‘I’d like to be the British Oprah’

Thebasketball player, TV presenter and author on pancakes, planning his wedding and living for holidays
  
  

Ade Adepitan
‘For lunch, I like a good pie and chips.’ Photograph: Pal Hansen/Contour by Getty Images

Sleep

I used to be a good sleeper when I was in the national wheelchair basketball team, because life was simple then: eat, train, sleep, compete. Between refurbishing a house, planning a wedding and filming commitments, the early hours are the only time for writing. My alarm is set for 6am, so on a bad day I get only three hours’ sleep. The other day I dreamed I was walking with a swagger, which felt funny when I woke up.

Eat

Pancakes or scrambled eggs are my ideal breakfast, but most days it’s toast. If I had more time, I’d eat like a king and be the size of a palace. For lunch, I like a good pie and chips, but I eat salad, too. I tend to do the cooking – roast lamb and seafood risotto are my favourites – and my fiancee [the songwriter Elle Exxe] and I are designing a bespoke kitchen. Designers don’t take into consideration how much space a wheelchair-user needs. Eventually, I want to go vegetarian. We’ll look back in 100 years and think we were barbarians.

Work

From my Instagram, it looks as if all I do is go on exotic holidays. My job is a lot of fun, but it’s long hours. When I’m presenting a sports show, I start at 6am and finish around 7pm, but with a documentary, such as Unreported World, there’s no schedule, so it’s like a rollercoaster: exhilarating, but hard. My aim is to have my own show. I’d like to be the British Oprah.

Family

Elle’s touring America now, but when we are together, an evening in with Netflix, pizza and a bottle of wine is great. Both our families are close by: my mum’s in Kent and my three siblings are in London. My older sister is disabled, and I’m constantly thinking about how she can have a good social life; I don’t want her to be isolated. At some stage, Elle and I will book our honeymoon. It depends how much money we have left after our building work, so we might end up in Bognor Regis.

Fun

I live for holidays: no responsibilities, no alarm. I also love sport. I’ve still got my basketball team, the London Titans. I listen to Busta Rhymes and Janelle Monáe; people who push boundaries. I like to be entertained, but also think, “They told me something.”

Ade’s Amazing Ade-ventures: Battle Of The Cyborg Cat is published next week by Studio Press at £5.99.

 

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