When Dan Walker arrived on the red carpet for the star-studded Cirque du Soleil premiere last week, fellow guests did a double-take.
Arm-in-arm with the former BBC star and meeting his gaze as they strolled into the Royal Albert Hall was sports presenter and pro golfer Iona Stephen, looking gorgeous in a stunning red dress.
To all the world they looked like an amorous couple, save for the crucial fact that Walker, 48, has been happily married for the past 25 years to someone else – his devoted wife Sarah.
But posing up a storm on the red carpet together, the pair proved they have struck up a genuinely lovely friendship.
How things have changed for the handsome Channel 5 News host, for I knew him at school.
As a teenager at Hazelwick Comprehensive in Crawley, West Sussex, I remember Dan being a bit of a ‘spod’, as we put it then.
A couple of years my senior, he was a quiet, skinny student who wore a khaki-coloured cagoule and was very serious about two things: football and the Church. None of this exactly endeared him to the cool crowd. And back then, in the Nineties, girls were most definitely not interested in him.
To be fair to Dan, he was likely more interested in furthering his career ambitions as a journalist – and, at that, he was a huge success.
He went on, of course, to work as one of the anchors of BBC Breakfast, commuting from his family home in Sheffield for a 5am start in Salford for over a decade.
Today, he has a pied-a-terre in London to allow him to reach the Channel 5 studios more easily, and to host his weekday breakfast show on Classic FM.
And as his star has risen, so has the attention he has garnered from the ladies – in particular, from pretty blonde colleagues.
‘Dan is so happily married,’ says an associate of his. ‘His priority is his wife, children and his beautiful dog, but because of work he has to spend the week away from them and misses them greatly.
‘He fills his time up by going to nice events. He is keen to get out rather than sit in getting lonely – nobody wants that for him. But more than that, he sees himself as a bit of a mentor to his co-stars. He wants to help their careers.’
Iona, 35, has become something of a favourite among viewers of Sky Sports and the BBC alike after she turned to hosting when a wrist injury forced her to ditch her promising golf career.
A graduate of the University of St Andrews – the Fife town where she grew up and which boasts the famous Old Course, the oldest golf course in the world – she counts Amanda Balionis, the American CBS sports presenter and star of Netflix series Full Swing, as one of her close friends. And, it seems, Dan Walker.
She is said to have played at various charity golf days with the presenter, and was a guest at the Strictly studios in November thanks to Dan’s friendship with his former partner from the BBC dance show, Nadiya Bychkova.
Dan’s relationship with the Ukrainian beauty has been described to me as a ‘lovely, lovely friendship’, and she was also at the Royal Albert Hall last week – although her plus one was her nine-year-old daughter, Mila.
Nadiya and Dan are thrilled they stayed friends after appearing on the show in 2021 – unlike other couples from the past few years, including the infamous pairing of Amanda Abbington and Giovanni Pernice in 2023.
One friend says: ‘They are a real Strictly success story. Nadiya became single and Dan is a kind man with strong Christian values. They are the opposite of the Strictly curse.’
So much so, in fact, that they celebrated Nadiya’s birthday at The Ritz hotel in 2024 where they indulged in a caviar tasting, snapping a picture of themselves in the famous hotel’s kitchen.
They were not alone that night, but the picture Dan posted on social media featured just the two of them.
And he has been supportive of her solo projects, which he has promoted on Instagram. He even gave Nadiya a platform to advertise her Strictly Christmas Special dance partner Billy Monger, and helped her land lucrative brand deals in a bid to supplement her Strictly income.
‘Dan has certainly jumped to become Nadiya’s knight in shining armour,’ says an associate of his. Dan is also said to ‘adore’ former Blue Peter presenter Helen Skelton, his co-host on Channel 5’s Yorkshire Great And Small. The pair explore the county, hiking and discovering its hidden gems.
Dan is said to consider mother-of-three Helen, who is rumoured to be dating her Morning Live co-star Gethin Jones, ‘an absolute pro’.
He has shared numerous shots of their behind-the-scenes antics on the programme and in one video describes her as his ‘work bestie’.
‘Dan certainly gets to work with some beauties,’ says a source, who points out that ‘he spent years working with a load of men on Football Focus’.
Dan’s wife Sarah Walker, who he met while they were both students at the University of Sheffield, perhaps got the best ticket in town: an invitation to Olympic gold medallist Adam Peaty’s wedding to Gordon Ramsay’s daughter Holly last month.
Dan and the professional swimmer met after they both appeared as contestants on Strictly in the same year, and Sarah was pictured at her husband’s side as they left the historic Bath Abbey.
And despite Dan’s numerous friendships with his co-stars, those who know him point out his home is where his heart is.
‘Dan might get a bit excitable to be at all of these events,’ says one pal. ‘But actually he also loves being at home. Underneath it all he’s still a little bit boring.’
