Tess Daly is an English television presenter and former model who co-hosted BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing for 21 years, from the very first series in 2004 until her emotional farewell in December 2025. Born Helen Elizabeth Daly on 29 March 1969 in Stockport, she built one of the longest and most trusted presenting careers in British television, becoming as much a part of the nation’s Saturday nights as the glitterball itself. As of October 2026, the 57-year-old is writing a deliberately different next chapter: she has launched an activewear business, stepped into wellness advocacy, and — following her amicable separation from husband Vernon Kay in May 2026 — is navigating single life in the public eye with characteristic dignity.
What makes her story resonate in 2026 is that it captures a moment of genuine reinvention. Few presenters walk away from the biggest entertainment show on British television at the height of their powers, and fewer still do it with the grace she managed, signing off alongside co-host Claudia Winkleman to tributes including a personal letter from Queen Camilla. This article covers her full biography: the Derbyshire childhood, the international modelling years, the breakthrough into television, two decades of Strictly, the NAIA business empire, the end of her 22-year marriage, and what she has said about returning to our screens.
Who Is Tess Daly?
Born Helen Elizabeth Daly on 29 March 1969 in Stockport, Cheshire, is one of Britain’s most recognisable television presenters, famous above all for co-hosting Strictly Come Dancing for 21 consecutive years. Before television, she enjoyed a successful international modelling career that took her from Manchester to Tokyo, Paris and New York, appearing in music videos for Duran Duran and fronting major beauty campaigns. Her presenting breakthrough came on Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast, and she went on to front the National Lottery draws, Children in Need for over a decade, and the Royal Variety Performance, but it is Strictly — which she presented first alongside Sir Bruce Forsyth and then with Claudia Winkleman — that made her a household name.
In October 2025, Daly was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the King’s Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting, a recognition that arrived just as she was preparing to leave the show that defined her career. Weeks later, she and Winkleman announced they would step down from Strictly together at the end of the 2025 series, closing a chapter that had run since 2004. Since then, Daly has focused on her business ventures — the Naia Beach swimwear label she co-founded and its 2026 activewear offshoot NAIA Active — alongside wellness advocacy work and a carefully managed return to public life following her separation from Vernon Kay.
Early Life and Modelling Career
Helen Elizabeth Daly grew up in Birch Vale, a village near New Mills in Derbyshire, the daughter of textile-factory workers, and attended New Mills Secondary School, where she earned nine O-levels. Her entry into modelling was the stuff of industry legend: she was scouted outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Manchester while waiting for her younger sister Karen, and within weeks of turning 18 she was on a plane to Tokyo for her first professional assignment. Because her first agency already represented a model called Helen Daly, she adopted the professional first name “Tess” — and the name stuck for the rest of her life.
The modelling years that followed were genuinely international in scope. After Tokyo came assignments across Asia and Europe from a London base, then five years living in Paris and five more in New York, a decade that gave her a worldliness few British presenters of her generation could match. In 1990 she appeared in two Duran Duran videos, “Serious” and “Violence of Summer (Love’s Taking Over)”, and she later became the face of Danone Shape yogurt and the lingerie brand La Senza in the UK. Modelling taught her how cameras, lights and long working days function, lessons that would serve her extraordinarily well when television came calling — and it also gave her the financial independence to choose her next move carefully rather than desperately.
Breakthrough in Television
Daly’s route into television began unconventionally while she was living on the Lower East Side of New York, when a friend who organised red-carpet events suggested she try interviewing celebrity attendees. She bought a video camera, conducted her first interview with the writer Quentin Crisp, and after a handful of red-carpet conversations she sent a showreel to the producers of Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast, who immediately hired her to host the Find Me a Model competition. It was a break that played perfectly to her strengths — a former model with genuine warmth and an interviewer’s curiosity — and it opened the door to a presenting career that would span a quarter of a century.
The jobs that followed established her as one of the most reliable all-round presenters in the business. She fronted ITV’s SMTV Live, presented the National Lottery draws on BBC One, co-hosted the charity telethon Children in Need alongside Sir Terry Wogan from 2008 to 2019, and in 2008 co-hosted the Royal Variety Performance. She also found time to write two novels, The Camera Never Lies (2011) and It’s Up to You, New York (2013), tales of love and ambition set behind the scenes of the fashion and media worlds she knew so well. By the time Strictly Come Dancing arrived in 2004, Daly was already a seasoned broadcaster — which is precisely why the BBC trusted her with its most important new entertainment format.
Two Decades of Strictly Come Dancing
When Strictly Come Dancing launched on BBC One in 2004, nobody — least of all its hosts — could have predicted it would become the biggest entertainment show in Britain, running for more than two decades. Daly co-presented from the very first series, initially alongside the legendary Sir Bruce Forsyth, whose “Miss Sunshine” nickname for her captured the warmth she brought to Saturday nights, and then from 2014 with Claudia Winkleman, forming one of the most beloved presenting partnerships in television history. For 21 years she was the calm centre of the glitterball storm: unflappable during live-television mishaps, genuinely moved by contestants’ journeys, and the steady hand guiding millions of viewers through every tango and waltz.
The end, when it came, was handled with the same grace that defined her tenure. On 23 October 2025, Daly and Winkleman announced they would leave the show together at the end of the current series and the Christmas special, and their final live programme on 20 December 2025 — won by former Lioness Karen Carney and her professional partner Carlos Gu — was an emotional farewell watched by millions. Judge Craig Revel Horwood read out a letter from Queen Camilla thanking the duo for being “the greatest Strictly couple of all”, and Daly’s closing words, thanking viewers for watching “over the years” because “it has meant the world”, reduced much of the ballroom to tears. It was the end of an era in the most literal sense: no presenter had ever been so completely identified with a single show for so long.
Life After Strictly (2026)
If anyone expected Daly to quietly retire after Strictly, 2026 has proved them wrong. Her main focus has been business: she is the co-founder, with former swimwear model Gayle Lawton, of the swimwear brand Naia Beach, and in 2026 she launched its activewear offshoot, NAIA Active, a move she has been keen to frame as a genuine entrepreneurial venture rather than a celebrity endorsement deal. The brand builds on the credibility she earned as the face of L’Oréal from 2013 and as a Vitabiotics Wellwoman ambassador since 2017, positioning her not as a presenter dabbling in fashion but as a businesswoman with a real stake in the wellness space she has inhabited for years.
Alongside the business, Daly has been carefully rebuilding her public profile on her own terms. She has teased that she has “a couple of projects in the pipeline” where television is concerned, while also talking about learning French and embracing a slower, more intentional way of living. Her September 2026 interviews introduced many viewers to the concept of her “Unavailable Hour” — a daily, non-negotiable block of time protected from work, phones and other people’s demands — as part of a broader anti-burnout message that has resonated with women of her generation. It is a striking pivot: the woman who spent 21 years being available to the nation every Saturday night is now teaching the nation the value of switching off.
Personal Life: Vernon Kay Split and Family
In May 2026, she and Vernon Kay announced that they were separating amicably after 22 years of marriage, ending one of the most enduring partnerships in British entertainment. The couple, who married on 12 September 2003 at St Mary’s Catholic Church in Horwich, near Bolton, shared the news in a joint statement posted to Instagram, explaining that the decision came “from a place of mutual understanding and a shared desire for what is best for both of us”. They stressed that they remain great friends, that their priority is their roles as loving parents to their two daughters, Phoebe (21) and Amber (16), and — in a line clearly aimed at shutting down tabloid speculation — that “there are no other parties involved in this decision”.
The announcement was handled with the same dignity that has characterised Daly’s entire public life: no interviews, no recriminations, just a request for privacy as the family navigated the transition. It followed a period of enormous professional change for both of them, with Daly leaving Strictly in December 2025 and Kay continuing to thrive as the host of BBC Radio 2’s weekday morning show, which he took over from Ken Bruce in 2023 and which has become the most-listened-to programme on UK radio. Friends of the couple have described the split as sad but genuinely amicable, and both have continued working without public drama. For a woman who spent two decades as half of a golden showbusiness couple, the quiet, controlled way she has managed this chapter has earned widespread respect.
Conclusion
Her story, as it stands in October 2026, is one of the most graceful reinventions in recent British public life. From a Derbyshire schoolgirl scouted outside a Manchester McDonald’s to an international model, from breakfast television to 21 years at the heart of Strictly Come Dancing, she has navigated every stage of fame without scandal, without bitterness and without losing the warmth that made viewers love her. Walking away from the biggest show on television, launching a business, and managing the end of a 22-year marriage in the same twelve-month period would test anyone; Daly has handled it with the composure of someone who learned long ago what actually matters.
What comes next is, by her own admission, still taking shape — a couple of television projects in the pipeline, a growing wellness business, a new language being learned, and a life lived more deliberately than the relentless Saturday-night treadmill ever allowed. But if the first 57 years are any guide, whatever she does next will be done with the same professionalism, kindness and unmistakable steadiness that defined her Strictly years. The glitterball era is over, and the next act is entirely her own — on her terms, at her pace, and with the same warmth audiences have loved for decades. If you enjoyed this profile, you may also like our look at Stephen Mulhern and his journey through British television.
How old is Tess Daly?
She was born Helen Elizabeth Daly on 29 March 1969 in Stockport, Cheshire, which makes her 57 years old as of October 2026. She began her working life as a teenager, scouted as a model at 18 and working internationally through her twenties in Tokyo, Paris and New York before moving into television presenting around the turn of the millennium. Her age has occasionally been a talking point in an industry not always kind to older women, but Daly has consistently refused to treat it as a limitation — fronting Strictly Come Dancing into her mid-fifties, launching a fashion business at 57, and speaking openly about embracing each new decade. She remains one of the most visible examples of a British female presenter thriving well beyond the age the industry once expected women to disappear.
Why did Tess Daly leave Strictly Come Dancing?
She left Strictly Come Dancing alongside her co-host Claudia Winkleman, with the pair announcing on 23 October 2025 that they would step down together at the end of the current series and the Christmas special. Neither presenter gave a single dramatic reason for the departure; instead, the decision was framed as the right moment to close a remarkable chapter after 21 years, with both women keen to pursue new projects while the show was still at its peak. Their final live programme on 20 December 2025, won by Karen Carney and Carlos Gu, was an emotional farewell featuring a tribute letter from Queen Camilla read out by judge Craig Revel Horwood. Daly has since said she has no regrets, describing the 21-year run as the privilege of her working life.
Are Tess Daly and Vernon Kay still together?
No — they announced in May 2026 that they were separating amicably after 22 years of marriage. The couple shared the news in a joint statement on Instagram on 8 May 2026, saying the decision came “from a place of mutual understanding and a shared desire for what is best for both of us”, and emphasising that they remain great friends whose priority is co-parenting their two daughters, Phoebe and Amber. They were explicit that no other parties were involved and asked for privacy, adding that they would make no further public comments. Both have continued their careers without public acrimony — Daly with her business ventures and Kay with his BBC Radio 2 morning show — and friends describe the split as genuinely amicable.
What is Tess Daly’s new business?
Her main business venture is NAIA, the fashion brand she co-founded with former swimwear model Gayle Lawton, which began with the Naia Beach swimwear label and expanded in 2026 with NAIA Active, an activewear line. Daly has been careful to present the business as a genuine entrepreneurial undertaking rather than a celebrity endorsement, emphasising her hands-on involvement in the brand’s direction. It builds naturally on her long commercial associations with the beauty and wellness world, including becoming the face of L’Oréal in 2013 and serving as a Vitabiotics Wellwoman ambassador since 2017. The launch positions her alongside a growing number of presenters turning their personal brands into real businesses, and early coverage has treated NAIA as a serious fashion venture in its own right.
What is Tess Daly’s real name?
Her real name is Helen Elizabeth Daly — “Tess” is a professional name she adopted at the very start of her modelling career. She was scouted as a teenager in Manchester, and because her first modelling agency already represented a model called Helen Daly, she chose to work under the first name Tess instead. Born on 29 March 1969 in Stockport to textile-factory workers, she grew up as Helen in Birch Vale, Derbyshire, and the name Tess only came into existence when her professional life began. She has used it ever since, across modelling, television and business, to the point where many viewers have no idea it is not the name she was born with.
Will Tess Daly return to TV?
She has not ruled out a return to television, telling interviewers in 2026 that she has “a couple of projects in the pipeline” without giving details. Since leaving Strictly Come Dancing in December 2025, she has deliberately taken time to focus on her NAIA business, her wellness advocacy and her personal life following her separation from Vernon Kay, rather than rushing into another presenting job. Industry speculation has linked her with various formats, but nothing has been confirmed, and Daly herself has suggested she is in no hurry — enjoying the freedom to choose her next move carefully after 21 years of Saturday-night commitments. Most observers expect her back on screen eventually, on her own terms.
