Tom Daley is one of the nation’s most-loved athletes, and has been making waves since he was a teenager.
The springboard diver, 30, is hoping to bring home gold once again as he and Noah Williams represent Great Britain in diving’s synchronised 10m platform final on Monday morning.
And alongside his fans, Tom’s husband Dustin Lance Black, who is 20 years his senior, will no doubt be supporting him in the crowd.
Tom revealed he met the film director, 50, at a ‘random dinner’ in Los Angeles, and in December 2013 announced he was dating a ‘guy’ who made him ‘feel so happy’ and ‘so safe’, with the pair going on to marry one another in 2017.
Touching on the pair’s 20 year age gap, Tom said: ‘One thing I learned early on is to not care what other people think. That’s been useful since I’ve been with my husband. I’m 27, he’s 47.
Inside Olympic diving star Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black’s 20-year age gap relationship
The couple welcomed their first child together, a son called Robert Ray, via surrogacy on June 27, 2018, and their second son, Phoenix Rose, on March 28 via surrogate
‘People have their opinions, but we don’t notice the age gap. When you fall in love, you fall in love,’ he remarked in an interview with The Guardian.
When asked again about the 20-year age-gap between the couple, Tom said that he barely notices it.
He said: ‘If anything, Lance is very much the big kid in the house. I consider myself to be an older soul, hence I have nearly 200 houseplants, and I knit, and I like to be able to have conversations with people who have experienced a similar amount as I have.
‘That’s where Lance and I connected a lot – he had lost his brother, I’d lost my dad, and then he lost his mum.
‘We’d also experienced the highs of a career and having that comedown afterwards. That was something we really were able to connect on.’
Dustin appears to be every inch the doting husband, as alongside supporting Tom’s diving career and love for knitting, he was also seen supporting Tom while receiving his OBE.
The couple welcomed their first child together, a son called Robert Ray, via surrogacy on June 27, 2018, after announcing in February the same year that they were expecting.
They welcomed their second son, Phoenix Rose, on March 28 via surrogate.
Tom and Dustin decided to go through the surrogacy process in the US, with Tom previously explaining how in the UK surrogates and parents are not afforded the same legal rights.
The springboard diver, 30, is hoping to bring home gold once again as he and Noah Williams represent Great Britain in diving’s synchronised 10m platform final on Monday morning
Alongside his fans, Tom’s husband Dustin Lance Black, who is 20 years his senior, will no doubt be supporting him in the crowd
Dustin appears to be every inch the doting husband as he supports Tom while receiving his OBE
He said: ‘We looked into it in the UK and in the US. In the UK it’s a lot more complicated because surrogates aren’t as well protected legally, intended parents aren’t protected legally, it’s just not safe, there’s a lot of hurdles to have to jump over.
‘In the US, everything is regulated in a way that keeps everyone safe and in the US the surrogacy process is a lot more streamlined.’
Tom previously revealed that he and American screenwriter Lance were drawn to surrogacy when they decided to have a child as they wanted to continue their family lineage.
Speaking to Giovanna Fletcher on her Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast in May 2022, Tom said: ‘Lance and I […] had lost so many people in our families and there was something about surrogacy that we were drawn to that just meant that we could pass on the people that we’d lost, their genes and their thoughts, their feelings, their personalities and being able to bring someone into the world, that felt so extremely special.’
Tom previously explained they both provided sperm to fertilise their surrogate’s eggs, but did not wish to know who the biological father of their first child is.
Hinting at the possibility of having another child, he told The Times in 2020: ‘We found an egg donor and we are the sperm donors, we have fertilised half the eggs each.
Tom revealed he met the film director, 50, at a ‘random dinner’ in Los Angeles, and in December 2013 announced he was dating a ‘guy’ who made him ‘feel so happy’ and ‘so safe’, with the pair going on to marry one another in 2017
‘People have their opinions, but we don’t notice the age gap. When you fall in love, you fall in love,’ he remarked in an interview with The Guardian
‘We put in a boy embryo and a girl embryo and we don’t know whose is whose. The next time we will do it the other way around.’
Tom also opened up about the complications around having children as same sex parents as he revealed his worries that came when he first realised that he was gay.
He said: ‘Once I started to realise that I was gay, it was like, how am I going to have children in the future? What does this look like for me? What are the options?
‘Having to figure out exactly how that was going to work, looking down the routes of adoption, surrogacy and all of those different things.’
Elsewhere, Tom and Lance have proved they publicly stand by each other after they became embroiled in feud with Sam Smith in 2016.
Dustin had a bitter spat over Twitter due to a gaffe made by Sam.
Following the 88th Academy Awards, where Sam won the gong for best song for James Bond track Writing’s On The Wall, they and Dustin became embroiled in a bitter spat over Twitter due to a gaffe made by Sam.
The singer caused controversy when they claimed they were the first openly gay star to win an Oscar.
The couple welcomed their first child together, a son called Robert Ray, via surrogacy on June 27, 2018, after announcing in February the same year that they were expecting
Tom and Lance have proved they publicly stand by each other after they became embroiled in feud with Sam Smith in 2016
Acclaimed screenwriter Dustin hit back at the singer on Twitter following the incident, reminding Sam that he’d won an Academy Award himself for Best Original Screenplay in 2009 for Milk.
The openly-gay star also took the opportunity to publicly blast Sam for ‘texting’ his husband Tom, sending social media into meltdown with his cutting comment.
Lance took to social media at the time to shut down Sam in spectacular fashion, writing: ‘Hey @SamSmithWorld, if you have no idea who I am, it may be time to stop texting my fiancé.’
The LGBT rights activist added, ‘Here’s a start’, before sharing a link to a video of them accepting their award at the 81st Academy Awards from presenters Tina Fey and Steve Martin.
It’s not known whether the pair ever buried the hatchet.
