Dressed in bright red Roland Mouret and with her hands clutched nervously together, it was the moment Tess Daly had been waiting for her entire career.
King Charles awarded her an MBE at Windsor Castle this week, and Tess accepted it with the grace and professionalism that she has spent two decades perfecting – a curtsey, a handshake and that prime time megawatt smile.
It was the greatest honour of her career, she told onlookers, and one that she dedicated to her late father Vivian, who died of emphysema in 2003.
Standing tall and willowy-thin in a cape dress and matching fascinator alongside husband Vernon Kay, 51, and daughter Phoebe, 21, she looked like a woman at the very height of her powers.
But for Tess, 56, the prestigious honour – given to her for services to broadcasting and charity – comes at the most precarious time in her career.
When, just weeks ago, she announced that she would be leaving Strictly Come Dancing after 21 years at the helm, the reasons were clear: Claudia Winkleman had become so popular that she was being promoted to the big time.
Her co-host and good friend, with whom she has fronted the dance competition since 2014, was the firm favourite with viewers, thanks, in part, to the success of the BBC’s other hit reality offering, The Traitors, and had simply outgrown the show.
Keen to capitalise on this success, the BBC has given Claudia her very own chat show, produced by Graham Norton’s production company So Television, and with a roster of A-list stars set to appear.
Just weeks ago, Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman announced that they would be leaving Strictly Come Dancing
For Tess, however, the future is not so clear; as yet there are no rumblings about next moves or production companies clamouring to sign her up, despite more than two decades-worth of unwavering commitment to the Corporation’s biggest entertainment show.
‘There is a lot of support for Tess within the industry, she is loved so much. But, of course, it’s no secret that she isn’t as in demand as Claudia and that is hard,’ said an industry source.
Claudia had started out as the host of Strictly’s sister programme, It Takes Two, a decidedly lower-rung job than hosting the main show, and was promoted following Bruce Forsyth’s departure.
It was due to Tess’s support that she landed the job and the pair became the first female presenting duo on a Saturday night prime time show.
‘It’s all about Claudia right now but Tess was the matriarch of Strictly and then Claudia joined her,’ said the insider.
‘She has kept that show going, it was so devastating for her when Brucie left but she kept on going and she is immensely proud of her time on Strictly.’
The pairing seemed to work – Claudia’s chaotic, quirky energy was an excellent foil to Tess’s glossy and word-perfect presentation.
And it was Tess’s professionalism and dedication to the job that kept it running smoothly, as judges came and went and controversies loomed and then dissipated, she was the show’s reliable stalwart.
Tess wears a bright red Roland Mouret dress after receiving her MBE from the King at Windsor Castle
The only time she missed out on presenting duties was during the first half of the second series, after she had given birth to daughter Phoebe. She was back, however, just six weeks after she had a caesarean section.
While filming the show each year, it is Tess who generally nails every take in the pre-recorded launch show and segments, while Claudia tends to ad-lib, be more creative and fluff it up.
‘Claudia is always seen as the clever one but Tess is no fool,’ said the source.
‘Sadly when they are put together, despite them complimenting one another the show, Claudia is deemed the more talented which is very unfair.’
While Tess and Claudia grew a deep and genuine friendship during their years on the show, they come from very different backgrounds.
Tess grew up in a working class family in Birch Vale, Derbyshire, the daughter of two factory workers, and attended the local comprehensive, New Mills Secondary School.
She was spotted by a model scout outside a McDonalds as a teenager and signed on the spot, and what followed was years of hard graft on the modelling circuit.
She appeared in two Duran Duran music videos – Serious and Violence of Summer – and had stints in Paris and New York as she tried to get her career off the ground.
In 2000, she sent a showreel into producers of Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast and landed her first television gig presenting its model-search segment.
It was just four years later that Strictly launched and she was propelled into the mainstream, in what would become her primary job for the next two decades.
Claudia, in contrast, was born into the British media elite; her is mother newspaper editor Eve Pollard and her father is book publisher Barry Winkleman.
She attended the prestigious fee-paying City of London School for Girls and went on to read art history at Cambridge before landing her first job as a writer and presenter on BBC travel show, Holiday.
After years spent presenting programmes including Hell’s Kitchen and The Great British Sewing Bee, Strictly also became Claudia’s main job when she joined in 2014.
Maybe it was because she was already so well-connected, or maybe it was because she joined Strictly later than Tess, but Claudia kept up a steady stream of side gigs.
Alongside Strictly, Claudia continued to front The Great British Sewing Bee until 2016 and then Britain’s Best Home Cook from 2018 until 2021. She has hosted Channel 4 competition The Piano since 2023.
She also became a regular on BBC Radio 2, with her ‘Claudia on Sunday’ evening show running from 2016 until 2020.
In November of that year, she took over Graham Norton’s mid-morning Saturday slot, which she hosted until March 2024, when she quit to spend more time with her family.
‘The truth is my children are growing up inordinately fast so I have decided to follow them around at home before they leave for good,’ she said as she announced her departure.
But it was The Traitors, which quietly launched in 2022, that has become Claudia’s most successful job, with a staggering 12million viewers tuning in to watch Alan Carr win last week’s Celebrity version.
The setup works for her as The Traitors films during the school and university holidays, so Claudia has been able to bring children Jake, 22, Matilda, 19, and Arthur, 14, whom she has with husband Kris Thykier, with her to Scotland.
While Claudia is seemingly always on our screens and airwaves, Tess has become synonymous with Strictly – her only other TV credits since its launch are Children in Need and an occasional one-off episode of a panel show.
So, when the duo announced that they were stepping down from the show in a video posted to social media, halfway through the current series, it seemed that it was Tess who was getting the raw end of the deal, and everyone was left wondering what on earth she’d do next.
So tight was their bond that they had both made a pact, some years before, to leave the show together when one decided they wanted to call it quits.
Diehard Strictly fans, who are quick to give their sweeping judgments on social media for the world to see, lamented the loss of Claudia, but did not seem quite so sad to see Tess go.
Despite her years of dedication, some trolls on X have dubbed her ‘wooden’ and ‘awkward’ in comparison to Claudia’s easy-going nature.
But, much like her Strictly co-star Shirley Ballas, Tess has always turned a defiant blind eye to the bullying and soldiered on with the show.
While she might not having any television jobs currently lined up for when she leaves just before Christmas, Tess still has a steady stream of income, thanks to her lucrative brand deals.
She has been a brand ambassador for supplement brand Vitabiotics Wellwoman since 2017 and for non-surgical skin-tightening brand Ultherapy. She has previously had deals with Biba, L’Oreal and MAC.
She is the co-founder of high-end swimwear label Naia Beach, which is sold in John Lewis.
Tess, who is mother to daughters Phoebe, 21, and Amber, 15, has not just been stoic in the face of professional criticism, but she resolutely stood by husband Vernon when it emerged that he had been sending sexually explicit messages to a number of women in 2010.
Kay, who took over Ken Bruce’s Radio 2 slot in 2023, was forced to apologise publicly to his wife.
But, through it all, Tess maintained that pearly white smile and was never seen with a blonde hair out of place.
While Claudia might be leaving Tess behind to step into a new era of her broadcasting career, there is no bad blood between the pair and they remain great friends.
‘There is nobody hoping that Tess will get a great new gig more than Claudia,’ said the insider.
With just a few weeks left on out screens, there’s nothing Tess can do but ‘keep dancing’.
