Comic Relief Red Nose Day hosts now – heartbreak, co-star romances and health battle

BBC fundraiser Comic Relief is back on our TV screens on this weekend.

The long running programme was founded in 1986 by stars including Lenny Henry, and has since featured some of the biggest names of stage, screen and film including Alan Carr, Tess Daley, Chris Evans and Graham Norton.

Its 2022 show will also feature huge celebrities including David Tennant, Davina McCall, Alesha Dixon, Zoe Ball and of course, Sir Lenny Henry, to name a few.

Ahead of the highly anticipated event, Daily Star has taken a look at where some of the hosts, past and present, are now.

Lenny Henry

Lenny Henry was one of the stars to co-found Comic Relief back in 1986 and has regularly hosted the charity fundraising programme throughout the years.

Having risen to fame as a comedian, he made his way into television through the talent competition New Faces in 1976, at the age of just 16 years old.

From there it was onwards and upwards, as he also appeared on Tiswas, The Fosters and starring as multiple characters in 1986’s Lenny Henry Tonite and The Lenny Henry Show.

He has most recently appeared in Doctor Who as Daniel Barton, Broadchurch as Ed Bennett and The Syndicate as Godfrey Watson, as well as being listed as appearing in the new Lord of the Rings TV series.

His career also led him to his future wife and fellow comedian Dawn French, who he was married to from 1984-2010, and with who he has one daughter Billie Henry.

The couple divorced in 2010, but Dawn French told The Mirror that she and Lenny are still very close friends, saying: “Remarkably, we seem to have shifted with relative ease from a 25-year marriage to a lasting friendship.

“I am amazed by us – there is no war, we’ve turned out to be the best of friends.”

Zoe Ball

Zoe Ball is no stranger to presenting roles, having hosted Comic Relief twice, as well as being the face of programmes including Live & Kicking, The Big Breakfast and Top Of The Pops.

She also branched out into acting, appearing in hit children’s TV programme Play Days and had a cameo in the 1997 film Still Crazy, opposite Bill Nighy.

Zoe also delights listeners with her breakfast show on BBC Radio 2.

Away from the limelight however, Zoe is as famous for her relationship with DJ Norman Cook, also known as Fat Boy Slim, who she was married to from 1999-2016.

Together they had two children called Woody and Nelly, but Zoe revealed that it took a while for her and Norman to get to know one another, telling her radio show listeners: “It took us a while to get to know each other. There was a bit of wooing involved and the old way of wooing of course, was the classic mixtape.

“So, I made Norman a mixtape,” she confessed. “Who makes a DJ a mixtape?”

One year later, Zoe began dating Antiques Roadshow crew member Billy Yates in 2016 after the pair built a strong friendship working in the BBC offices.

However, the cameraman was found dead in his home in Putney on May 4, 2017 after he took his own life at the age of 40.

She has since paid tribute to Billy Yates and during an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, the star confessed getting over his death was the “hardest thing” she’s ever dealt with.

She said: “He’d lived with depression for a huge chunk of his life. It’s so hard to sit and watch someone you love and care for struggle with mental health.

“Losing his was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with in my life.”

Zoe has since revealed that she is dating boyfriend Michael Reed, after the couple were introduced to one another via mutual friends in 2017.

In 2021, the famous presenter also gave fans a glimpse inside her stunning £1.5m home in East Sussex, which boasts a tennis court, swimming pool and acres of land.

Zoe regularly posts snaps of the vintage furnishings in her home such as 60s film posters, as well as her huge allotment, where she regularly grows her own food.

She shares the home with her children Woody and Nelly, as well as her partner Michael Reed.

Speaking about her home on ITV programme For The Love Of Britain, Zoe said: “Recently we bought this house in the countryside in the middle of the Ashdown Forest.

“It’s absolutely stunning. The kids can run wild, climb trees.”

Zoe has unfortunately been forced to pull out of the 2022 event after testing positive for Covid.

Davina McCall

Davina McCall has become one of Comic Relief’s most familiar faces – having presented the programme a huge seven times.

She is no stranger to presenting roles, having rose to fame as a host on music channel MTV in the nineties, as well as becoming the face of reality TV programme Big Brother from

She has also hosted reality TV shows including The Jump, The Biggest Loser and Got To Dance, and in 2006, was given her own primetime talk show called Davina.

However, it was axed in the same year after it failed to attract audiences and was not critically well received.

Since then, Davina has become a familiar face on our TV screens on popular ITV competition The Masked Singer, as well as on programmes including Long Lost Family.

Away from our TV screens, the popular host has also spoken candidly about battling with a drug addiction when she was younger.

She said overcoming her battle with an addiction to heroin in her early twenties made her a ‘stronger person’, and speaking during Advertising Week Europe 2021, she said: “I dealt with a very difficult, alcoholic, drug-addict mother and in turn ended up a drug addict myself.

“But it’s just made me a much stronger person and a person that doesn’t take no as the end of the line.”

Davina also made a shocking revelation about her previous drug addiction, saying: “I was a heroin addict – that was my drug of choice. I loved heroin, more than my family, more than myself.

“I hated myself, but I loved heroin more than anything. I would have stolen, I would have got myself into terrible mixes to try and get it or have it or get money to have it.”

However, the star made the decision to stop taking drugs and attended weekly meetings to overcome her addiction, adding: “Getting through that, going to go into Narcotics Anonymous meetings, made me realise that if I can get through that I can pretty much get through (anything).”

The star has since turned her life around and is now one of the UK’s most popular presenters, as well as channelling her energy into her well known fitness brand.

She has also had a number of high profile relationships, including with the rock singer Eric Clapton, as well as with ex-husband Matthew Robertson, with who she had three children – Holly, Tilly and Chester.

Davina is now in a relationship with celebrity hairdresser Michael Douglas, with who she hosts the podcast Making The Cut.

Paul O’ Grady

TV legend Paul O’ Grady has been a viewer favourite on our screens throughout the years and in 2007, made his Comic Relief hosting debut.

He also hosted popular game show Blankety Blank from 1997-2005, as his drag persona Lily Savage, who was loved by generations of fans.

Since Blankety Blank, Paul O’ Grady has also hosted television programmes including his own tea time talk show and most recently, Paul O’ Grady’s Saturday Night Line Up.

However, the popular presenter has also faced health worries in recent years, after suffering from a heart attack.

In his autobiography, Paul O’ Grady: Still Standing, the popular tv star revealed that his father died of a heart attack when he was a teenager in 1973, and that in 1988, his mother had also died suddenly of a heart condition.

Paul is still a presence on our tv screens, most recently delighted fans in the latest series of Paul O’ Grady: For The Love of Dogs, where he was seen adopting a new member of the family called Sausage.

David Tennant

David Tennant is a familiar face to many on Comic Relief, as not only has he hosted the programme multiple times, but he has also participated in its many sketches.

As well as being in the videos for parodies of The Proclaimer’s 500 miles, he also made appearances in Doctor Who sketches as his famous tenth doctor.

On one occasion, he also starred opposite fifth doctor Peter Davison for one of the sketches, who would later become his father-in-law.

In 2008, he met actress Georgia Moffett, the daughter of Peter Davison and actress Sandra Dickenson, on the set of Doctor Who – with the couple later marrying on December 30 2011.

Together the couple have five children together – Olive, Wilfred, Doris, Birdie and Ty, Georgia’s son from a previous relationship, who David adopted.

Their children are also pursuing acting careers of their own, with daughter Olive making her big screen debut in the BAFTA award winning film Belfast in 2022.

As well as winning a National Television Award for his role in ITV true crime drama Des in 2021, he has most recently starred in the BBC adaptation of Around The World In 80 Days and is due to reprise his role as Crowley in the Amazon series Good Omens.

Claudia Winkleman

Claudia Winkleman is another celebrity to have hosted Comic Relief multiple times, as well as appearing as a judge on the series Comic Relief does Fame Academy from 2005-2007.

From there it was onwards and upwards, with the star hosting Strictly: It takes two, before taking over hosting duties with Tess Daly on Strictly Come Dancing from 2010, following the departure of legend Bruce Forsythe from the show.

She continues to host Strictly Come Dancing and is reported to be one of its highest earning stars, earning a reported £350,000 per show.

She also presents a Sunday morning show on BBC Radio 2 and is the face of hair brand Head and Shoulders, so it is no surprise that from all her work, she has a huge estimated net worth of £8.74 million.

Away from our TV screens, Claudia is also married to film director Kris Thykier.

She married Kris in 2000 after meeting through friends, and in an interview with The Sun, shared some intimate details about her love life, saying, “I think we put way too much pressure on ourselves.

“I haven’t had sex with my husband for two days, let’s do it on the stairs.”

The couple have three children together, Matilda, Arthur and eldest son, Jake.

In 2014, Claudia’s daughter Matilda was hospitalised after her Halloween outfit caught fire, while she was out trick or treating.

Claudia recalled the incident on the 2015 programme Watchdog, telling Chris Hollins that as she was talking to someone, she heard her daughter scream mummy.

She then turned around to see that her daughter’s Halloween outfit was on fire, leaving her with severe injuries that required a number of operations.

Claudia described the moment as “life changing” during the interview, and thanked the doctors and nurses at the hospital who looked after her daughter.

Alesha Dixon

Singer, dancer and former Mis-teeq group member Alesha Dixon hosted Comic Relief three times from 2017 and is due to host again in 2022.

Outside of her own music and TV career, she was also a judge on Strictly Come Dancing for three series between 2009 and 2011, replacing Arlene Phillips.

She also lifted the glitterball trophy with her partner Matthew Cutler after winning the series as a contestant in 2007.

Dixon is currently a judge on the ITV show Britain’s Got Talent and was a host on BBC show The Greatest Dancer, as well as appearing in the judging line up most recently for ITV series Walk The Line.

Alesha has also built bridges with her ex MC Harvey, who she ended her marriage with after discovering he was having an affair with singer Javine.

Speaking this year, MC Harvey revealed the pair had secretly met up at his step-dad’s funeral and cleared the air in a phone call after, saying on Anything Goes With James English podcast: “Alesha then rang me, six months before I met my wife, and she said:, ‘I just want you to be happy, Harv.’

“I apologised to her about what happened in the past, we had a mature conversation. We talked about our kids, I said to her: ‘Your kids are beautiful.’ She said: ‘Your kids are beautiful.'”

For more of the latest showbiz news from Daily Star, make sure you sign up to one of our newsletters here.

Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk