Joel Dommett: Why Loving My Life Terrifies Me!

27:03Davina McCall:And not even when you heard me sing? No. No. Because I'm so innocent. to believe you know and and look no offense to me you look like the kind of person who might have severe flatulence to a follow-through i think you know someone when someone goes davina mccall she's got diarrhea i go yeah that fits that that could that could easily happen that looks like she's probably enjoyed a loose meal it was really funny it was like one of the most fun days of my life because i was pretty convinced that you didn't know but I wasn't 100 % sure I knew that nobody on the panel knew so it was like I really really was proud of that it was so brilliant it was fun and again it just saw my kids like fell off their chairs they were like why are you making us watch this with you if you're not in it I was like no you've got to see it because Joel told me there's a really good singer on there and Holly my daughter was like it's you right I was like it's not Joel told me that it's somebody that you'll all know who's amazing.

28:11I love there's one thing convincing a 10 year old. But there's another thing convincing an 18 year old. A 24 year old. 24 now, crikey.

28:18Davina McCall:Yeah. Like hopeless. God. She knew immediately. I opened my mouth like the minute the words came out. She's heard me singing around the house all her life. Oh my God. I love it. Yeah, God. It is. I mean, we're very lucky. We're very lucky. And I love working with you and I love working with everybody else. And we just have a blast. It's brilliant. We have, it's a really, it's a really special show. It's been a really special show for me, personally, to sort of have been through that, through for a big chunk of my life and a big important chunk of my life where I've started my career and gone through this sort of finding my feet.

28:59It started with you getting married. It started with me getting married. Like amazing, right? And now I've got a child running around.

29:04Davina McCall:And now you've got another one on the way. Yeah. In what, a month? Yes. Yeah. Wow. It's petrifying. Very exciting. You know, best gift the world could ever have. Yeah. Honestly. I feel like he's really ready for it as well. It's really magic. I mean, it's also, we're trying our best to hide the gender, but, I mean, he's telling absolutely everyone. Is he? He's telling absolutely. We have an absolute error of telling him what gender it is. Maybe he'll be like, shut up, shut up, shut up. He is the greatest kid. he's very cool he's changed your life in a major way yeah man yeah I mean it's bonkers it's mad isn't it and you never think that it's going to change your life in such a profound way and then they come and you're like oh okay everything's changed because I live quite a bonkers life anyway you know so I kind of so I thought like I will slip into this bonkers life and it would just be another part of that madness.

30:07But Ariel just like hit me for six, man. It's crazy how much it changes everything. I just, I really love it. And it's those weird difficult times that sort of makes it so much more enjoyable.

30:24Davina McCall:What do you mean like the weird difficult times? Just times where it's like, you know, it definitely doesn't make your life easier. No. And it definitely doesn't make your relationship easier because you've got to like make time for each other. And it's it's really it's really tough, but it just it's really enriches everything for me. Like and there was definitely a moment where me and Hannah, I remember us being in bed and we were like talking about the idea of not having children, which is obviously completely an amazing option too by the way uh there's but we were we were really ready to take that route and we were we sort of went well let's try and see what happens and it just feels mad that um that it's happened that way and i just feel so crazy that in that choose your own adventure that we've gone that way and that adventure has become a full-on three extended editions of Lord of the Rings vibes do you know what I mean it's like five hour epic ridiculousness of trying to get that ring to Mordor it's it's so bonkers I interviewed Durbla Mescal who's Paul Mescal's mum she's Irish yes and she's a poet and she's written a book about finding joy and she talked about having kids and folding herself up when she had kids like neatly into a little parcel and putting herself away and becoming a mum and then as her kids have grown up and left home she's now unfolding herself and I thought what a lovely description of what it is.

32:24Davina McCall:When she said that, I was like, that is exactly what I did. I folded myself away. That's so true. And then now, you know me now, and me and Michael are living our second lives because we've unfolded ourselves and we're going out again and it's amazing. And you're still in there. You feel a bit lost, like you've lost yourself in some way. We say this to you and Hannah all the time. And, you know, it's just a moment in time and it's gone so quickly. And you unfold yourselves and you two will have each other go around the world and do whatever you like. Come clubbing with me and Michael at Pikes.

33:02Oh, my God. 100 percent. We look we look to you and Michael so much. It's so bonkers, man. You are you are a really you're a really important thing to us.

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34:38In just five days, Prolon offers a science-backed approach to weight loss without extreme restriction or guesswork get 15 off plus a 40 bonus gift when you subscribe at prolonlife.com slash now what i loved about comedy and it's and it's when i it's just it's such an amazing thing stand up it's an absolute meritocracy of this thing where the harder you work the more stuff you write the the the more you go to edinburgh at the time it was the more you go to edinburgh it really was the more effort you put in the the more you get out of it yeah the further you move up the ladder and I just loved that it was like I sort of tried other things before that and I was like well always my life I was doing lots of trying lots of things and I was I'm just not there's other people who are so much better at this than me and I've and they've put in less effort and why is that like i haven't got i'm not again i'm not trying to be faux humble i'm not naturally good at anything like my i'm not i've always had to be someone at school in my career that i've not i have to really put in effort to be as good as naturally talented as other people are and so i knew when i got into comedy that i was like okay but i'm gonna i'm gonna just gig loads because this is something that the more effort you put into it, the better you get.

36:06Was that something you read from Jimmy Carr? Yeah. Yeah, so Jimmy's book, The Naked Jape, I think it's called. I remember reading in his book that he gigged 300 gigs in his first year. I was like, okay, cool, I'm going to try and beat that. And so literally I got to 300 gigs just before the dawn of the year went past. Wow. And I couldn't do enough gigs, so I bought this little bike from a charity shop. I was living in my friend's council flat and I would just like ride this bike around London and do like three gigs a night. Just ride it because if you could ride it because if you got the bus, you couldn't make it to more gigs.

36:43So you would just go to print off what was time out at the time. And if there was a gig, a comedy gig that loads of names on it, then it meant that it was an open mic gig. And it meant that like there was more chance of someone dropping out. Yeah. So I would. I must have told you the story before. and I would so I'd get I'd go to like one gig not booked so I'd go to this gig there'd be like 16 comedians on chances are one comedian wouldn't turn up or I'd get there and they'd be like oh they all turned up sorry Joel and then so I'd get on my bike ride to the next one so all the 16 comedians so I've all turned up okay no worries ride to my bike to the next one oh yeah one's not turned up you can jump in do you know three minutes of comedy or whatever it was and then And basically did that for like three years until people sort of bookers and get to know you.

37:32And then you start to build up a set. And I think what I loved about it was like the community of comedians that you had. They sort of, you know, if you look back now, it's insane. It's like me, James Acaster, Josh Whittacombe, Rob Beckett. Rob's not slightly after, but it was still of that sort of that bunch. The list goes on and on and on.

37:55Davina McCall:It's like it's unbelievable. So many people started then. We all used to live in Edinburgh, Tom Allen. Yeah. We used to live in Edinburgh together in this flat. Mad, isn't it? And it was just like such a fertile environment for us all to like understand how to learn. And we were all bettering ourselves, trying to push each other because we would just see other people's shows and be like, oh, bloody hell, that's so funny and so good. and I really look back on it now it's like the most I look back on it so fondly I feel so privileged that I've had that time in my life where I was allowed by my family to to be to be just purely creative and live in London and what is probably quite a dangerous place for a parent to let your child just go.

38:46And I just was gigging every night trying to survive. I remember just being like, I need to survive this week. I need to survive on five pounds. And like trying to make it stretch. I'm not saying I'm like, oh my God, I'm so poor. But it was like, I just making it stretch because that's all you had. And it was so fun. Good times, right? I always walk around London with a Hannah, and what's beautiful about it is that every single corner of London now, every doorway, every street, there'll be this weird venue that I've played. Like, literally here. I got out of my car to put on the roller skates in the Queen of Hoxton, which is right on that corner.

39:35And I sat in the doorway, and I was like, I used to do gigs downstairs here. Wow. which it's such an amazing, I don't know if that's the right word, visceral. It's like a sort of amazing sort of feeling where you're like, I can really feel those gigs where like the deaths, you can really feel that like death. And then you feel the good ones like in your soul of like, oh, I remember this feeling. I remember leaving and then going like, cool. And then getting on your bike and unchaining your bike and going to the next one. And then do that for eight years until I did I'm a Celeb. And then TV started a bit.

40:13Davina McCall:Can I ask you about how that started? Because were you always funny? Did you love comedy? Because your first passion was acting. Yeah, I wouldn't say acting was my passion. It was something that led me to what I'm doing. Okay. In that way that like I sort of loved where I grew up. I knew we grew up in the middle of nowhere and I knew I just didn't, it wasn't for me. You talked about doing this thing of like yearning for an adventure of some sort. It was so funny that you said that because I've interviewed a few people and often they talk about being alone at home, not experiencing the outside world either because they just live too far away from it or whatever.

41:03Davina McCall:me I used to sit on the gate waiting for the famous five to come yeah and take me on an adventure um and it was interesting to hear you done something similar yeah because you yearning for adventure because you've you've got this sort of slightly isolating childhood you know we grew up on a farm which is like a tiny farm and my brother loved farming so he was like that was his thing how much older or younger was he two years older okay and so I was you and it's funny when you think back this sort of idea it's like this weird fanciful idea of just like I'm going to move to London do you know what I mean and it's this weird fanciful thing that sometimes is the thing that you need in order to push start your life, to kickstart this mad old hill that is my career or my life.

42:02And I needed that stupidity almost of like not really knowing what London is, not really knowing. How'd you ever been? I basically had went once.

42:14Davina McCall:So you went once and then you're like, that's where I'm going. Basically, yeah. So I did National Youth Theatre. so the only thing that I really connected with in school was my theatre teacher he was the nicest guy to me and that's often what happens isn't it your nicest teacher is the thing that you go down and he was great he was just had a passion for it and it was brilliant and so I was like this is what I feel like I have more of a kinship to than anything else he was like you should do National Youth Theatre they're coming to Bristol to audition you should do that I was like oh okay So I did that and I got in and it was basically these summer courses that they do.

42:53And it was for two weeks and you live in Tufnel Park for two weeks. And I'd never been away from home. And I was 17 and I went to London for two weeks, stayed in this like tower block in Tufnel Park. and it was a mad thing where I was just like oh my god there's there's other there's other weirdos do you know what I mean you're like oh there's weird there's other weirdos and you know what I'm not the weirdest one this is so cool and I uh it didn't just get me out of my comfort zone in terms of geographically it got me out of my comfort zone I don't think it led it it led me to London more than it led me to acting right and it it's something that I never really understood about acting for me was it just felt all a bit serious to me right and again what I really loved with that with comedy was that it didn't feel like there had that thing that actors will probably correct me but didn't feel like that thing where you had to work at it quite so much but I felt to me I was like I I'd really tried acting for a bit but it felt like there was like six-year-olds who were in Harry Potter who were better at me and I was like oh this is well you know what's interesting

44:14Davina McCall:because you're talking about comedy being something that you found less scary but to any other muggle out there yeah like me you know if somebody said go and do some stand-up I would I would literally rather stick hot needles in my eye than do that it'd be so terrifying to me that's what I love about it what the terrifying it's got it's got a price of admission do you know what I mean like there's I love that it's got that fear behind it that people are like oh I could I would rather put hot needles in my eyes than do that then I'm like well that's great for me because I've already pressed the hot needles in my eyes and I've realised it's not actually that bad to put hot needles in your eyes and do you know what I mean?

45:02Davina McCall:It is like when, I mean talk me through because you must have had some at the beginning an audience of people that are just not laughing at anything you say So many bad gigs and again I love it Not that I love the death but I love the route out of the death There's so many fun I once did a gig that was so you'll laugh at this I did a gig once that was so bad I was I blame all if I was tired so I had a little nap in my car before I drove home and I was woken up by an audience member who was knocking on my window when I woke up she went oh thank god I thought you had such a bad gig that you killed yourself

45:41imagine how bad the gig would have had to have been to an audience member would have come outside and be like oh he's gone he's killed himself yeah I thought he was gonna I thought he was gonna he's only gonna have bloody done it it's so funny i mean that's material yeah yeah yeah i just think it's it hard and look this is definitely a conversation for diary of ceo across the hallway but it's like there's something brilliant about it a stand-up it's so immediate it's this thing that i really crave in my life that it satisfies so beautifully where it tells me immediately whether it's right or wrong I say something out of my mouth and an audience will tell me whether that is right funny wrong not funny and sometimes it's right for one room I was just gonna say like how do you read a room you try your best to read it and you try your best to change it but sometimes it's down to you and sometimes it's down to then and it's a conversation yeah you know uh but I I just love that like if we had that in life that's what I sort of hated about the acting thing is that like you would do a play and everyone would come out and be like oh my god it's the best we love you you are incredible what a show my darlings kiss on three cheeks and then it would get one star reviews you're like well liars someone needs to tell me it's shit but like the audience tell you it's shit so immediately so then I can go the next day that's what I loved about doing three gigs a night I miss that now because I don't have the time to do three gigs a night every single night of the week it's why I loved it so much I like you learn so much because you come away and you might start off as a little like morsel of an idea by the end of the night of doing three gigs it's become a full bloomed bit and then by the end of the week it's become a full five minute routine and then you chomp it down to a one minute routine and then you extend it out to another a free bit then you shine it up and make it but the process it's like a puzzle it's so fun and I love putting together I like putting together a tour more than I like doing a tour I don't get me wrong I love touring I think it's amazing to perform to people who have bought a ticket again that's something that I am I'm enjoying now now more again I took it for granted that I used to be like cool cool I'm touring oh great that was fun gig now on this tour especially that I'm in now I just I'm taking that time to like really look at the audience and be like oh like they've paid for this ticket and they he's that's this guy it's always it's always an old it's always old people I was looking like an old person laughing I'm like oh man that gets me I just love that that old guy is laughing at me because I feel like in my head he's not my demographic and when I can see their joy there's like something about joy that I'm like enjoying so you feed off that just I don't I don't even feed off it I'm just like enjoy I'm just like I never I just just enjoy the gig now I'm like taking that weird time to like go like oh my god These people have decided to share their time and their money with me.

49:09Davina McCall:Do you think any of that has to do with being a dad? A hundred percent. Yeah. It's just taking it slower and just feeling like it's, feeling like it could stop at any point.

49:27And like, I suppose it's also a weird thing where like I'm looking, and looking at it through his eyes a bit and going like oh if he could have some element of this enjoyment in his life I'd be so happy for him yeah and I feel so I know I keep saying it but I feel so privileged that I'm able to like be on stage and for someone to buy a ticket and it's gone from being one person buying a ticket to to being a room of 800 people buying a ticket but now like to see that one person laughing I'm like oh it means it's like though I don't make it too sobby but it's like it does mean something yeah um I want to talk to you about catfish gate oh yeah please do um it makes it worse whilst you're doing it you're wanking I'll tell you.

50:20Davina McCall:Yeah, sorry. Cut that bit out. I'll tell you why. Keep it in. Keep it in. I'll tell you why. Stephen Bartlett. I assume he does the editing.

50:39Davina McCall:because people get cancelled and I think everybody has an abject terror of being cancelled for something or something really bad happening that could have a cataclysmic effect on their career and what you did was skillfully navigate a catastrophe yeah turn it into something that you put so out there and talked about so much that it just didn't matter anymore. Took all the heat out of it. So could you just explain what happened to you? So it was a mad thing. Again, when I look back on it now, I just, I was, it was really impressive, like how I dealt with it, because now I would deal with it with so much more baggage.

51:27But like...

51:27Davina McCall:Well, thank God it happened to you then. Yeah, it was a perfect time for me. You know, I was single and I was, again, this shows my age. I was contacted on Twitter by some person. They were attractive. I talked to them and they were like, do you want to have Skype sex with me? And it was like, I think I've told you this, but there's this guy who made a documentary about the same catfish. And he once asked me for an interview and he sat me down and he said, But I was talking to this catfish lady for about 18 months before I finally trusted her to be able to sort of have Skype sex with her. How long did it take you, Joel?

52:14I had to look this man in the eyes and go, about 15 minutes. I would say 15 to 20 minutes. I'd whacked it out.

52:31Davina McCall:Was he like? He was like, oh, I didn't realise that was an option. I think it was more difficult for him because he had more baggage. I just remember doing it and just being like, that was weird. To be fair, that was quite a long time ago before anybody really knew about catfishing. Again, fair play to them because they sort of, they... Invented it. They saw something in me that they were like, I think this guy's going to be on telly. And so they did it and then they banked it. And then they waited years before they released it. They contacted you or did you contact them? They contacted me and then, give us money.

53:11Davina McCall:We've got these pictures. And they were incriminating. I mean, they were like you, like, fully naked, with a beanie on. Take the beanie off, Domit. Take the beanie off. I look like an innocent smoothie bottle. Do you know the innocent smoothie bottles?

53:43And there was no doubt that it was me.

53:47Davina McCall:Yeah. Because I had a massive poster of me behind my head. My Edinburgh poster behind me with my reviews on it. and my TV and your name my names and I remember doing it and being like that was weird alright cool that was odd then years later they got in touch with me because my career had moved on a bit and went we've got so they sat on it they sat on it for all that time hoping you would be famous that's a different thing that's not a big thing it's too much the luckily I didn't I would have um uh and then yeah so they for quite a while again clever unbelievable and they did it for quite a lot of people there was a lot of people involved in this this scandal you would call it again it was a simpler time you know there's so there wasn't much this much social media at all twitter i think that was it um really facebook maybe but um was used way less and I was like oh god this thing's come up and I was like I could have dealt with it in one way I could either be sad yeah I'd be frustrated and be like my career's over because no matter how big I become this thing is always going to be in the background of me and I knew I was starting my tv career this was always gonna be there is this skeleton in a closet if I don't sort it now and They wanted money.

55:19They wanted money at that point. But ultimately, I knew that I would probably just give them the money and then they would relate it anyway. So I knew it doesn't matter. And they would want money again or keep using it. So the only other option, and I also knew, it's like, I'm the victim here.

55:37Davina McCall:Yes. It's not like I've cheated on my wife. No. It's not like I've done anything bad. And that's what I've tried to genuinely base my life upon. I've tried my, you know, papers can all go like, we've got this thing on people. But ultimately, I'm like, there's not really anything bad. I've not done anything bad. And I like to live my life as if like the press are watching. And I know that sounds sad. But it also is like, it's quite life affirming in a way because I don't make any stupid decisions. and and so I decided I was like well you know what it is horrible what's happened but also it's pretty funny yeah I mean can I just say like you were brilliant about that because I I would have a breakdown yeah if it was me and you were absolutely brilliant about it I was in such an interesting point in my life where everything that was happening to me was comedy.

56:45Was material. Was material. And because you go to Edinburgh every year to write a new show every year and you're thinking, what's my year going to be like this year? What is this year about? What is this year about? And in the past, I'd sort of, I like to make these sort of quest shows, you call them, which are basically about you going like, oh, there's this thing that I want. let come with me and try and get it and it's really fun and then the show is do you make it do you not you know i made one about trying to put my band together by the time i was 30 that i was in when i was 14 and it was a really fun show about me trying to find my friends and all this stuff i did this other one about seeing this girl on the tube that i fancied and we gave eyes at each other and then she left and then me trying to make it my life's ambition to find this woman and doing all of this stuff and going all these weird adventures to try and find her i love those sorts of shows and uh and then this happens to me and i was like well it'd be so stupid for me to ignore this and so i just embraced it and then literally they messaged me going we want some money and then i was thinking about it in my comedic mind of like i'm going to show these texts on stage like so i should make them funny and then they would message something back and I'd message something really funny back.

58:05And they'd be like, ha ha, you think this is funny, but yeah. This isn't funny. And then it was like really interesting because at that point, it was a very new crime. It was very new. I went to the police. They didn't know what to do with it.

58:21Davina McCall:Oh, okay, yeah. Because again, I went to the police because I was like, well, maybe that'll be, I needed a summation to the show. It happened to me. Did I tell you what had happened, the whole thing? Because the whole thing is mental. No, go on. It's like a modern fairy tale. Yeah. It's kind of beautiful. Yeah. So this person messages me. We have Skype sex. I figure out it's a catfish. It's all fake. They've got a video of me. Right. It's all awful. I'm like, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. And then I write an Edinburgh show about it, but I've got no ending because that's basically all that's happened so far.

59:01It's happened and I can't find them. I try everything to try and find out who they are. I can't find them. The real person is. I go to the police. They can't do anything. So I put a Google image search of the person whose profile picture is who they've stolen. I was like, well, let's talk to the real person whose photo they've stolen. It turns out this person is a real person. Yeah. and I go hey just to let you know someone's stealing your photos and pretending to be you and uh they were like oh yeah it's been happening a few times I've been trying to take them you know I tell them to take them down and they come back up and blah blah and I went look just out of interest this sounds so weird I would love to just get a photo with you so I've got you know Something for the show.

59:51Something for a show. I was like, where do you live? Which is a creepy thing to say to anyone. And she went, I live in Greenwich. And I lived in Broccoli at the time, which is literally like a mile down the road, right? I was like, I live in Broccoli. We have to meet up. She's like, okay, cool. So we met up.

1:00:10Davina McCall:Bear in mind, this is the girl that you thought you were doing. So you've already, like, yeah, okay. And so this girl, I meet this girl in Greenwich. Again, I don't even realise it at that point, but it's a date. We get on really well. We go on another date. Oh, my God. And actually we get on well. And we end up dating for like six months. How mad is that? So I end up dating the person whose face I thought I was masturbating to in the first place. And then, this is the mad part. she's half Russian, she moves back to Russia, I then have Skype sex with her.

1:01:00How mental is that? This needs to be a movie. Stephen Bartlett, this needs to be a movie.

1:01:08Davina McCall:How mad is that? Isn't that insane? And... Life imitating art. It really is this weird, it's weird, man. But it was just like, I'm so happy that I did that. Great ending for the show. Yeah, yeah. It's a great ending for the show. And it's, I just, I loved that. I learned a lot with that show about honesty and about like, just, I've done Edinburgh shows in the past where I've just sort of done little lies to sort of make entertainment and do all this. And that was such an honest show. Yeah. Do you know what I've always said to my kids? There's nowhere to go with the truth. Oh, so true. So true.

1:01:58Davina McCall:It's like the buck stops there. And that's what I, and I've brought that feeling. I really think it's filtered into my whole relationship now. Because before then, I used to like never feel comfortable in relationships. I'd always like for no reason do little white lies of like I'm here I'm there oh no no you know whatever I don't even know what they would have been but it just but they're not not hurtful lies but they're just not the whole truth just not the whole truth and it's something very refreshing about being in a like a relationship where you just are painfully honest and I think I learned from that weirdly it feels like that's the precipice of like when my life completely started to change so that was 2016 was like the big life-changing year so then I met so I met I met Hannah I then uh and that first year of I'm a celeb doing the extra show it was so hard just because I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know how to read autocue I don't I don't know how to be I'm trying to fit my comedic persona that I'm so used to doing which is a it's a round peg in a square hole which is telly and it doesn't fit i know now that is a hard thing to fit yeah and um so i'd come i'd mess up the autocue and get really annoyed with myself and i just i'd sabotage the rest of the show because i'm frustrated because i'm like oh i messed it up i'm annoyed and i used to like call hannah which would be at like midnight her time at home cry on the phone and be like i I can't do this, I'm so far away from my world.

1:03:41It's mad. And then the next year I felt like I was better at it, but still a bit shit. And then the next year they kept on giving me the job. Third year in, I was like, I feel like I'm myself now. Still messed it up a few days, but I felt like I was like, okay, I'm cool. I feel like I'm more myself. And then that show got canceled for monetary reasons for three years. and then we came back and I've now hosted it for two years. I've now gone back with my family. So it's again a full circle moment of it all.

1:04:15Davina McCall:Seeing Wilde say good day, mate. Oh my God. Was the sweetest thing I've ever seen. Good day, mate. Good day, mate. And because we talked to her, we just say it to everyone. Just lovely. So cute. Wilde say good day, mate, to this person. Good day, mate. Hannah slid into your DMs. So Hannah slid into my DMs in... Again, this is part of this mad... Can I just say to anybody watching that fancies anybody? Slide. Slide. Slide in. Absolutely slide away. Yeah. Slide away. You're married. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it worked. It was... Don't slide in now because I'm married. Not to his DMs. Don't slide into my DMs.

1:04:53Davina McCall:No, I'm joking. I'm married. My DMs are fully locked. Me too. Locked off. But please do because I will show it to my wife and laugh. um and uh i uh it was 2016 this is again mad it feels like fortuitousness all of this madness and we i'd been in this world where i'd just gone on i'd gone on so many tinder dates in 2016 because it felt like that was this tinder year yeah and um and then all this catfishing mad stuff happened and then uh i went into the jungle and i in the coming out show which was i was i was being interviewed by lorraine the day after i'd come out yeah and i was a bit tipsy because i had a bit of a drink and so because it's morning in the uk but it's evening in australia me and adam thomas were there a bit drunk and on lorraine having a lovely time so hannah was had been in Miami modeling this again a bit sounds a bit wacky but um uh and she came back and she just got back and she just had a big meal with her friends she'd got back that day or the day before for Christmas and she was out with her friends and the tv was on in the corner of the bar and she saw me on Lorraine with with Adam and she was like who's that guy he's fit she hadn't seen any of it she hadn't seen any of the jungle quite good though yeah it was just like he's fit yeah and it's like message him i also i also do question that like in her like i didn't see any of you on the jungle in that same way that megan markle didn't know prince harry oh what is a prince

1:06:50and uh so she so she saw me and dm'd me there and then because she was a bit drunk in the day

1:06:58Davina McCall:having a nice time with her friends oh my god i love it she dm'd me some emoji and i was going through my dms and i just saw this person who looked looked fit on the thumbnail again important if be fit in your thumbnail be your fit yourself because i clicked on that thumbnail because i was like oh what's that and then uh some sort it's so funny to look back on our messages together me and hannah like like to look back at our things there's two things we like to look back on our first conversations that we had together on instagram and our first texts together and we I made a video of the birth of our child where like she said don't video it I don't want it and I was like okay cool and then when it got to it I was like I have to fucking video this.

1:07:52Davina McCall:Yeah it's a once in a lifetime. I clicked video you know you can always delete it. Yeah yeah. Put it over there legs facing this way so you don't see anything. Yeah. I'm not going straight down the channel tunnel. Yeah. And I'm not going Catch! No one wants to film Dover and um

1:08:16and uh and so Grand Canyon yeah exactly and so um I uh put it there and we love just like going back and watching it it always makes us feel mental

1:08:30Davina McCall:do you know what I love never have I ever oh yeah we love it you two on that are so brilliant yeah You can see the mechanics of how you two work so brilliantly on that podcast. I love it. Now it's turned into this amazing opportunity for me and Hannah to talk. Yeah. Whereas like it used to be this thing where it had a real format where we tried to do things that we'd never done together before. And then when you have children, that became too much. I mean, it is the cliche where we, the first episode we ever did, we said, let's, we're going to keep doing things that we've never done together before.

1:09:11Because we came out of COVID, during COVID, we were like, oh, what was, we made a list of all the things we've never done together. We were like, once we come out of lockdown, let's do those things together. And then we were like, should we make this into a podcast? It might as well. And so we started doing all those things. And on the first episode, we said, well, we'll keep doing this until we inevitably never have I ever had a baby. jokingly said that. One year after we started that, we announced we were pregnant.

1:09:38Davina McCall:Can I just say something to everybody? I knew they were pregnant before anybody else. First person? Before your parents? Anyone. Before anyone? Before I barely knew. Literally, this is me finding out. I'll be like this. So I'm chatting to Joel. This is me just going like, and I think... We were at Radio 2. We were at Radio 2 together. This is me, just like, I'm just like texting Hannah. And then she sends me a picture of a, of like a... Clear blue. A clear blue thing. And I was just like... What's that? Oh.

1:10:13Davina, look at that. Like, that's basically, that's how it went. So Davina basically found out I was... And then I couldn't say anything to anyone.

1:10:23Davina McCall:It was very exciting. I was going to say three and a half seconds later. I felt so honoured. Yeah. It was amazing. You've carried on doing Never Have I Ever. it's just slightly changed. But what I think is good is you are showing people how to have a healthy relationship. Yeah. By talking things through. And we literally like, what's quite fun is that we take on this almost persona in our relationship when we do it because it's quite performative. And we do air our graces and it's really fun because we get to like fight. Yeah. We don't like argue. Do you see how I underneath always type Team Hannah or Team Joel?

1:11:00Davina McCall:like whoever I'm taking whosever sides I'm taking mostly it's Hannah's yeah it's almost always Hannah's sorry it's and again it's like code of the female shit I mean you you are welcome to take her side every time because people don't generally take my side because it's again ridiculous life that we lead you know and it's I think it's really fun to offload every week and go oh I did this this week um I want to give you something oh um this is nice So we always try and get something written from somebody to the person that we're interviewing. But I wanted to do today's. Oh, this is so nice. No, this is perfect.

1:11:44This is great. This is so exciting.

1:11:46Davina McCall:This is for you from me. You've got to read it out loud. I love that.

1:11:54Just make sure there's not a check in there.

1:12:00Okay.

1:12:07Darling Joel. It's good paper, by the way. Darling Joel, I wanted to write your letter today, but now I've come to actually putting pen to paper. I don't know where to start. There's so much eulogising to do. I don't know which bit of smoke to blow up your ass first, but I'll start with what a surprise you were. Tall, good looking, funny, I expected you to be tricky or not interested in talking to me. What I was greeted with was the most open-hearted, generous, charismatic man. Not just with me, but with everyone, from runners to executive producers. Everyone got treated the same. You make us all feel special.

1:12:58Michael and I have just loved getting to know you, Hannah and Wilde, and we are so happy to be a part of your lives. I'm afraid you are stuck with us forever. We've loved watching you become a dad. It's been such a joy, and the love that you and Hannah have for each other is tangible. I don't mean this in a patronising way, but I'm so proud of you and everything that you've achieved, and I cannot wait to see where you go from here. Michael and I love you with all of our hearts. Thank you. It's so cute. I love you.

1:13:32Davina McCall:Okay, that's a wrap. Thank you so much. So, Joel, shall we? Let's do it. Come on. Here, you take a pen. We can design our own noses this year on Comet Relief. I've done it on the wrong angle. It's okay. We can still see what it says. You ready? Let's do it. Let's go. Let's go. Comet Relief.