Claudia Winkleman

Claudia Anne Irena Winkleman MBE (born 15 January 1972) is an English broadcaster and writer. She is best known for co-presenting the BBC One dance competition Strictly Come Dancing (2004–2025) from 2010 to 2025^[1] and presenting BBC One reality series The Traitors (2022–present), for which she won a BAFTA award in 2023.^[2] Winkleman also hosted her Saturday mid-morning show on BBC Radio 2 from 2020 to 2024.^[3] She won the Royal Television Society's Outstanding Achievement Award in 2025.

Claudia Anne Irena Winkleman^[4] was born into a Jewish family in the Westminster district of London on 15 January 1972,^[5][6] the daughter of author and journalist Eve Pollard and her husband Barry Winkleman. She grew up in the Hampstead area of London.

Her parents divorced when she was three.^[7] Her father's marriage to children's author Cindy Black produced a half-sister, actress Sophie Winkleman, who later married Lord Frederick Windsor. Her mother's marriage to Nicholas Lloyd gave her a half-brother, Oliver.^[8]

Winkleman was educated at the City of London School for Girls^[9] before attending New Hall, Cambridge, where she graduated in art history.^[10]

In 1992, Winkleman began appearing frequently in the long-running BBC series Holiday, and this continued throughout the mid-1990s. This culminated in a special documentary in which she travelled around the world for 34 days, reporting from Japan, India, Costa Rica and Dubai. Throughout this period, she appeared as a reporter on other shows, particularly This Morning, interviewing various celebrities. During the late 1990s, Winkleman presented a number of programmes on smaller digital channels. She had a stint on the cable channel L!VE TV, but soon left to pursue other projects. In 1996, Winkleman hosted Granada programmes God's Gift (taking over from Davina McCall) and Pyjama Party (co-hosted with Katie Puckrik and Michelle Kelly).

Winkleman also presented a number of gameshows, including the dating show Three's a Crowd,^[11] LWT show Talking Telephone Numbers, the second series of Granada TV show God's Gift, and Fanorama.^[12] In 1997 she was the co-host of children's Saturday morning TV show Tricky. She was also an occasional team captain on a gameshow called HeadJam, hosted by Vernon Kay.

Winkleman's first major television job was in 2001, on the regional discussion programme Central Weekend.^[13] Between 2002 and 2004, Winkleman began her first daily television role when she hosted the BBC Three Entertainment update show Liquid News, taking over from Christopher Price on the now defunct BBC Choice. She shared the presenting duties with Colin Paterson, and later Paddy O'Connell. The show featured celebrity interviews.

In 2003, Fame Academy appointed Winkleman to present a daily update show on BBC Three, in conjunction with its second series. She repeated the show in 2005 for the much shorter celebrity version Comic Relief Does Fame Academy. Also in 2005, Winkleman co-hosted The House of Tiny Tearaways, a BBC Three reality TV show. She also began hosting Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two, a supplementary programme to Strictly Come Dancing.

Winkleman then presented several more reality shows, including End of Story^[14] and Art School.^[15]

Winkleman narrated the 2008 BBC Three show Glamour Girls,^[16] a documentary series about glamour modelling in Britain.^[17]

In March 2009, Winkleman was announced as the host of the new series of Hell's Kitchen on ITV1. She fronted the nightly show live from the restaurant in East London in its fourth series in the spring.^[18] On 14 November 2009, she appeared on the main show of Strictly Come Dancing to present backstage, due to main presenter Bruce Forsyth being on sick leave. She co-hosted the show with Tess Daly and guest presenter Ronnie Corbett.

On 29 March 2010, she was named as one of the new co-presenters of the Film programme, replacing Jonathan Ross.^[19][20] The Guardian stated, through her recent hosting of Sky Television's coverage of The Oscars, Winkleman had "proved both a passionate and engaging advocate of cinema", while her husband Kris Thykier is a film producer with credits on several mainstream releases.^[21]

On 2 April 2013, Winkleman began presenting the BBC Two sewing competition The Great British Sewing Bee, until 2016. The show went off air for 2017, but was brought back in 2018, with Joe Lycett replacing Winkleman as presenter.^[22]

In 2015, she appeared on The Big Fat Anniversary Quiz.^[23] In May 2015, she appeared on an episode of Watchdog on BBC One in which she discussed, during a segment on dangerous Halloween costumes, that the previous year her daughter had been badly burned when the costume she was wearing caught fire.^[24] In November 2016, Winkleman presented the one-off BBC special Bublé at the BBC with Michael Bublé.

From 2018, she presented Britain's Best Home Cook and The Makeover Show^[25] for BBC One.^[26] In May 2018, Winkleman co-presented The Biggest Weekend on BBC Two and BBC Radio 2.

In 2022, she began hosting the BBC reality gameshow The Traitors, in which contestants navigate challenges testing loyalty and deception. A second series was announced in February 2023, with Winkleman returning as host, premiering on 3 January 2024.^[27][28] Winkleman returned to host the third series, premiering on 1 January 2025, followed by a Celebrity Traitors series in October 2025.

In 2023, Winkleman hosted a five-part Channel 4 competition show The Piano, which gave amateur pianists the chance to perform at London's Royal Festival Hall.^[29][30] It was announced that the show had been renewed for a second and third series, a Christmas special, and a documentary focusing on the winner of the first series, Lucy Illingworth.^[31]

Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two was devised as a companion show to run alongside the second series of Strictly Come Dancing, and continues to run. It follows a similar format to the one Winkleman hosted on Fame Academy, and sees the presenter deliberating and dissecting the ins and outs of the main competition, accompanied by dance experts, assorted guests and the competitors themselves. The show is aired every weekday at 6:30 pm on BBC Two throughout the course of the series.

Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two was hosted by Winkleman from its inception. In 2011, former contestant Zoe Ball took over as host from Winkleman.^[32]

In 2010, Winkleman became co-host of the Sunday night results show of Strictly Come Dancing, presenting alongside Tess Daly.^[33] Following Bruce Forsyth's departure in 2014, her role expanded to include presenting the main show.^[34]

On 23 October 2025, Winkleman and Daly jointly announced that they would leave the show following completion of the latest series and the recording of the Christmas Special.^[34]

Winkleman started her journalism career as a travel writer, writing columns about her various worldwide excursions in The Sunday Times and The Independent, and the free daily paper Metro. She began to write more general work, opinion-led lifestyle journalism about womanhood, sex and relationships. She wrote for Cosmopolitan and Tatler amongst others. Between 2005 and 2008, she wrote a regular weekly column for The Independent called Take It From Me.^[35]

In April and May 2008, Winkleman hosted a six-part comedy quiz series taking a humorous look into the week's celebrity gossip, called Hot Gossip.^[36] The show was broadcast on a Saturday afternoon on BBC Radio 2; points were awarded to those who dished out dirt.^[37] The show featured pundits including Will Smith, Phil Nichol, Jo Caulfield, Rufus Hound and Jonathan Ross' brother, Paul.

She hosted a weekly show on BBC Radio 2 every Friday night between 10pm and midnight called Claudia Winkleman's Arts Show, consisting of interviews with people from the arts world, as well as reviews and debate. In July 2010, Winkleman sat in for Dermot O'Leary.^[38] She covered for Ken Bruce on several occasions from 2012 until 2014.

In April 2016, she began presenting her own Sunday night show on BBC Radio 2 called Claudia on Sunday from 7 to 9pm. In June 2017, Winkleman covered for Steve Wright in the Afternoon from 2 to 5pm.

In 2020, Claudia on Sunday was displaced from the schedules and subsequently ended due to the COVID pandemic. It was announced on 23 November 2020 that Winkleman had taken over the Saturday mid-morning slot on BBC Radio 2 from Graham Norton. Winkleman's last Saturday morning show was broadcast on 23 March 2024,^[39] with Romesh Ranganathan taking over.^[40]

In 2007, Winkleman answered telephones at the BT Tower for the Disasters Emergency Committee in response to a humanitarian crisis in Darfur.^[41] In May 2007, she helped relaunch The National Missing Persons Campaign,^[42] and also supported a Christmas campaign by the charity Refuge,^[43] which aimed to stop domestic violence.^[44]

On 18 March 2011, Winkleman was one of the presenters of BBC's Comic Relief.

In 2012, Winkleman was one of the judges and the host of the FilmNation shorts at the British Film Institute, which, as part of the Cultural Olympiad for the 2012 Summer Olympics, encouraged people aged 14–25 to get involved in filmmaking.^[45]

In March 2025, Winkleman was appointed a trustee of the British Museum.^[46][47] She said of the appointment: "I am deeply honoured to join the Museum's Board of Trustees and hope that I can in some small way help it to continue its mission to curate, conserve and explain our history for the benefit and education of all."^[46]

In June 2000, Winkleman married film producer Kris Thykier at Marylebone Town Hall.^[48] They live in Connaught Square, Westminster and have two sons (born 2003 and 2011) and a daughter (born 2006).^[49][50][51]

On 31 October 2014, Winkleman's eight-year-old daughter was taken to hospital after being seriously injured when her Halloween costume caught fire.^[52] Winkleman stated that the costume had brushed against a lit candle in a pumpkin.^[53] The incident prompted the UK government to tighten the flame retardant standards of Halloween costumes.^[54]

Winkleman was born with severe myopia and has undergone multiple surgeries on her eyes.^[55][56]

Her half-sister, Sophie, married into the British royal family when she became the wife of Lord Frederick Windsor, the son of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent.

She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2025 King's Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting.^[57]

Winkleman was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2025 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting.^[58][59]

• Claudia Winkleman at IMDb
• Claudia Winkleman on Twitter
• Claudia Winkleman's column for The Independent