Davina McCall's childhood
Davina has presented countless numbers of high-profile shows over the years, including all eight series of Big Brother, five of the celebrity versions of the show, as well as high profile jobs hosting the BAFTAs, and BBC charity events Comic Relief and Sport Relief. In addition, she graduated to acting with Sam's Game, a Friends-style TV sitcom.
Things weren't always so rosy for the TV star, however. British beauty Davina was born on October 19, 1967. At age three she went to live with her grandparents in their Surrey home as her parent's marriage dissolved. Her French mum Florence whom Davina has described as something of a "wild child" - returned to Paris, and Davina would see her only on holidays. She continued to see her father Andrew, a graphic designer, at the weekends before moving in with him and his new wife Gaby when she was 13. Part of Davina's sunny disposition - one of her greatest assets as a TV presenter - stems from overcoming her fractured childhood and turbulent teens, during which, desperate for attention, she developed the eating disorder anorexia. The star was a regular fixture on the London club scene. "I was a drug addict, a complete mess," she says of her early 20s. "You name it, I took it... I had a job so I looked like I was holding everything together. But then the cracks started to show. I began letting people down and turning up late for work."
Early career
Family friend Eric Clapton helped turn things around for Davina and she landed her own show on MTV. A brief failed marriage to actor Andrew Leggett followed in 1997, but with her new-found self-confidence, the Love On A Saturday Night presenter bounced back to land both a series of enviable jobs and her prince charming. Her chance meeting with now-husband Matthew Robertson is like something out of her show Streetwise - the programme in which she grabbed unsuspecting people off the street and convinces them to go on dates with complete strangers.
Family life
© GettyWhile walking her dog in a West London park, she spotted Pet Rescue presenter and former model Matthew and said hello. Determined to act on the spark she felt, Davina doubled back and struck up a conversation. The two were married a year and a half later and have three children - Holly, born September 2001, Tilly, who arrived in September 2003 and Chester, who was born in the same month three years later. Matthew and Davina divorced in 2017 after 17 years of marriage.
