Earl was born and raised in Stamford, Lincolnshire. She attended Stamford High School. She obtained a degree from Hull University and won the university's Philip Larkin literary prize in 1994.

After university, Earl worked as a copywriter in local radio before moving into radio presenting.

She is the author of the 2007 book My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary (published in the U.S. as My Mad Fat Diary in 2016), a collection of the diaries she wrote as a teenager in the late 1980s. The diary describes the tribulations of being a fat girl with mental health difficulties, who lives in a council house with her mother and her mother's new Moroccan boyfriend.^[1] A follow-up book, My Madder Fatter Diary Vol. 2, was published in 2014.

The E4 comedy-drama series My Mad Fat Diary (2013–2015) was based on her books. Unlike the books, the series took place in the 1990s rather than the 1980s.

Earl lives in the Australian city of Hobart and is married to Kevin Johnson. They have a son named Harry.

Earl participated in Hard Quiz Live at the Theatre Royal, Hobart on November 12, 2022. Her expert subject was Princess Diana and she eventually won the show, taking away the limited edition brass mug.

Novels edit

• OMG! Is This Actually My Life? Hattie Moore's Unbelievable Year! (2013) - Fictional diary of a teenage girl who lives in Derby.
• OMG! I'm in Love with a Geek! (2014)
• My Life Uploaded (2018)
• My Life Gone Viral (2020)

Nonfiction edit

• It's All in Your Head: A Guide to Getting Your Sh*t Together (2017); published in the U.S. as Your Brain Needs a Hug: Life, Love, Mental Health, and Sandwiches (2019)

• Rae Earl bio at her agent's website
• Interview for thelondonpaper, 21 August 2007
• Interview for Metro, 3 February 2014