Mo Gilligan Opens Up About Fatherhood Journey

Mo Gilligan has opened up on becoming a father, calling it 'the one part of life you never know about until you experience it', in rare comments about his two children.

The comedian, 37, welcomed his baby with his fiancée Taia Tulher last summer and fathered son Rudi, two, during his brief relationship with Selina Christoforou.

While he usually keeps details of his personal life private, Mo got unusually candid about his kids during an appearance on Elizabeth Day's podcast, How to Fail.

He revealed one of his favourite parts about fatherhood was getting to 'bring my children into my universe', describing the joy and excitement he got from watching them learn from him 'in real time'.

The TV presenter gushed: 'Fatherhood is great. Fatherhood is the one part of life you never know about until you experience it. No one can tell you, you can't learn it in a book. It is experiencing it in real time.

'I think knowing that I am my children's universe, like they learn from me, they see it from me.'

He then recalled his emotions after bringing son Rudi to get his first haircut and reflecting on his own experiences at the barbershop when he was a child.

'My son, he just turned two and he's at an age where he's talking and stuff, I went to take him to get his haircut for the first time last week,' Mo explained.

'The barbershop is a place that I spent many a Saturdays where my mum would do a shop and leave me there and I'm like, “oh, I'm here with all the grown folk”. 

'Taking my son to get his hair cut and even before going in the shop, he was like, “oh no, I'm scared”. I'm like, oh, okay.

'So just sitting with him and seeing him experiencing, you know, the barbershop essentially, which is a hub for the black male community where as a child, you hear conversations that you're like, "Oh wow, these are some grown conversations". 

'But everyone gets treated the same once you're in the chair, you can be a elderly man, you still get a haircut, you'd be a young kid, you still get your haircut.'

He went on: 'And seeing him scared, but also knowing he just grabbed onto me and I'm his universe. I'm bringing him into my universe. 

'So he is experiencing this in real time, and it's just those little like gifts of life that you sit there and you go, "Wow, this is an exciting moment. This is the universe and I'm going to show you how to do this and you’re learning in real time."

'That's what I really enjoy about fatherhood at the moment. I really, really, really enjoy that.'

News broke that Mo and Taia, 28, had welcomed their little one over the summer in September last year, with the couple choosing to keep the baby's name, gender private.