Tess Daly admits she kept pregnancy secret from Strictly bosses

Tess Daly has revealed she decided to keep her pregnancy a secret during the early days of her Strictly Come Dancing career.

Appearing on Giovanna Fletcher’s Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast on Tuesday (14 October), the host said that she initially decided not to tell BBC bosses back in 2004 that she was expecting her first child.

Daly said: “What if they didn’t want me because they don’t want a visibly pregnant woman on a prime time show on a Saturday night, which by the way in 2004, you didn’t see many.”

At a press conference a few weeks after Daly had accepted the job, she recalled having a “bump” and had to come clean. “Nobody minded and it was absolutely fine,” she said.