Claudia Winkleman is probably the nation’s most in-demand TV presenter but she’s all too aware how quickly fame and fortune can change.
Co-host of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, Claudia Winkleman took her own popularity to a new level when she presented ‘The Traitors’. The hit reality show is packed with deceit and drama. Faithfuls try to out-manoeuvre the Traitors and take home the £120,000 prize money before they are picked off one by one. “We’re told to trust our guts, but ‘The Traitors’ suggests our guts don’t know as much as we think,” says Claudia.
More than five million watched ‘The Traitors’ when it launched in 2022 – the show and Claudia were among the winners in the TV Baftas 2023 – with even more tuning in for the third series, which concluded in January. Claudia was asked if she’d be a better Faithful. Her reply? “I think I’d prefer to be a Faithful but I genuinely have no idea if someone is lying to me. My 18-year-old told me she’d done all her homework for years.”
Nothing is forever
Claudia, 53, has reached the pinnacle of her career, hosting three prime-time programmes. As well as ‘The Traitors’, she co-hosts ‘Strictly’ – for which she and fellow host Tess Daly were awarded an MBE – and presents Channel 4’s ‘The Piano’. However, Claudia is acutely aware that fame can be transitory. She revealed: “I always touch wood because it’s only down to luck – it’s got absolutely zero to do with me. That’s not faux self-deprecation, it’s the truth.”
Born and raised in London, Claudia studied history of art at Cambridge University before going into TV and radio. She has fronted BBC TV shows like ‘Comic Relief’, ‘One World: Together at Home’ and ‘The Great British Sewing Bee’. Her mother, Eve Pollard, is a former editor of the ‘Sunday Mirror’, and her father is the publisher Barry Winkleman.
Claudia has been married to film producer Kris Thykier for 24 years. They have three children: Jake, 21, Matilda, 18, and Arthur, 13.
From Traitors to tango
After ‘Celebrity Traitors’, which aired this autumn, Claudia is currently helping bring the sparkle back to Saturday nights with the latest series of ‘Strictly. It will be her last, after she and Tess Daly announced they’d be leaving together. As in previous years, the Grand Final is set to take place on 20th December – just a few days before the Christmas special.
When ‘Strictly’ celebrated its twentieth anniversary last year, Claudia said, “It’s always felt like a snow globe of a show to me and it’s basically saying, ‘Christmas is coming’, and this can only be a good thing in my world.”
All episodes of ‘The Traitors’ series 3 are available on BBC iPlayer. Watch ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ on Saturday nights on BBC One and on BBC iPlayer.
