For Claudia Winkleman, 2025 has been a year of elevation. The beloved presenter was already within touching distance of national treasure status, having presented the bona fide institution that is Strictly Come Dancing for over ten years alongside Tess Daly. In the proud, Strictly-loving nation of Great Britain, this is one of the biggest gigs a presenter can get — there’s not much upwards from the Blackpool Tower Ballroom.
Few would have expected the year Claudia Winkleman stepped down from Strictly to be the biggest of her life, and yet 2025 has been just that. A large chunk of her renewed popularity is thanks to her role as host of The Traitors, the cult BBC gameshow where regular Britons stab each other in the back week in, week out, and this year with The Celebrity Traitors, which saw the likes of Stephen Fry, Celia Imrie and Alan Carr sweating buckets (and releasing the occasional fart) in the Scottish Highlands.
Then, on Monday, it was officially announced that the 53-year-old broadcaster had broken through the notoriously durable glass ceiling into the highest echelons of TV presenting. Winkleman is set to host her own Graham Norton-styled chat show on BBC One, launching in spring 2026.
“I can't quite believe it and I'm incredibly grateful to the BBC for this amazing opportunity,” Winkleman said of her new post. “I'm obviously going to be awful, that goes without saying, but I'm over the moon they're letting me try.”
But just how did this heavily fringed, orange-skinned, eyeliner loving presenter become the most powerful woman in British TV? It’s a journey that has tracked nearly 40 years, countless presenting credits, and one iconic haircut.
A Londoner born into the world of media
A screaming, fringeless Claudia Anne Winkleman came into the world on January 15, 1972, when she was born to mother Eve Pollard and father Barry Winkleman in London. She grew up in a creative and media-focused environment, with her mother already a well-known journalist, working as a senior editor at publications like Elle and You Magazine, and her father a successful book publisher.
As well as introducing her to the world of media, Pollard is also responsible for Winkleman’s signature look. Speaking to the Mail about her mother in 2017, Winkleman shared: “I was brought up by the strongest and most brilliant woman I’ve ever come across – my mum. She was strong, and fantastic, and taught me everything I needed to know in being female. We weren’t allowed any mirrors in the house, which would explain how I do my make-up… and the fact I look like I’ve slept in a skip.”
Winkleman was educated at the City of London School for Girls in Barbican before going on to study art history at New Hall, Cambridge (the women’s only college now known as Murray Edwards). Winkleman wasn’t your standard Cambridge student: she revealed on an episode of Would I Lie To You that she slept on the floor of her student halls to make room for the sunbed she was renting for £40 a month.
A born host, Claudia also organised a charity fashion show while at university, which she later described as “a jokey thing […] a chance to be a bit glamorous after the library.” She didn’t know how she would follow up on her art history degree, telling the Irish Independent in 2015: “I didn't know what I wanted to do [when I left university]. I thought I'd work in a gallery and people would stroke my hair while I talked about Titian.”
Despite having no designs on entering the world of television, it’s exactly this kind of quirkiness, glamour and charisma that landed Winkleman on our television screens.
Early TV, Strictly, and an accidental rise to fame
Winkleman’s rise to fame was a slow, undeliberate one. She began her television career in the early 1990s, working on smaller and youth-oriented programmes like the BBC’s travelogue series Holiday, where she worked as a reporter. Winkleman landed the job thanks to her globetrotting experience, following a brief foray into travel journalism post-university.
In the mid-1990s, Winkleman’s trademark tanned face started popping up in a variety of TV programmes, including This Morning, Pyjama Party, and Talking Telephone Numbers, with the young broadcaster making a name for herself via her self-deprecating humour and informal presenting style.
Her first major breakthrough came in the 2000s, when she began to take on more prominent presenting roles. She became widely known for hosting BBC Three’s Liquid News, a satirical entertainment show that allowed her to showcase more of her wit and comedic timing.
Winkleman’s career gained further momentum when she became a regular contributor to Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two in 2004, affording her proximity to one of the biggest television institutions in Great Britain. Ten years later, in 2014, Claudia Winkleman was presented with some rather large shoes to fill: Bruce Forsyth was leaving Strictly Come Dancing, and she was asked to replace him.
Winkleman joined Tess Daly, who had been presenting alongside Brucie since 2004, in a landmark moment that was described as "a hugely significant step" for the BBC. Two female presenters hosting such a prominent TV show was unheard of. "The new Strictly line-up is a clear demonstration of the BBC's determination to feature more women, particularly in its primetime output," the BBC’s entertainment correspondent Lizo Mzimba said at the time.
According to Eve Pollard, Winkleman’s mother, Claudia never expected this level of fame – even before her stratospheric 2020s rise. “Claudia’s fame is so astonishing because it has crept up slowly and not one bit of it was planned,” Pollard told The Times in 2018. “She doesn’t feel famous. If you think you’ve seen her on the Tube, you probably have.”
Strictly gives way to The Traitors
While many got to know Winkleman through her time on Strictly, she has a surprisingly versatile (and thoroughly extensive) list of other, more unknown presenting credits.
Beyond Strictly, Winkleman hosted the BBC’s 2014 film review programme, Film 2014, following her red carpet coverage for the BAFTAs, Golden Globes and Academy Awards. She has also presented The Great British Sewing Bee, The Piano, One Question, Britain's Best Home Cook, and The Big Fat Anniversary Quiz.
In 2020, Claudia fell naturally into radio, taking over the Saturday mid-morning slot on BBC Radio 2 from Graham Norton. “I'm not often speechless but the chance to be with the wonderful Radio 2 listeners every Saturday has left me, quite frankly, gobsmacked,” Winkleman said at the time. “I hope my voice comes back in time for the first show as I can no longer simply rely on a fake tan and a fringe.”
Then, in 2022, Winkleman was approached and asked to star in a British version of De Verraders, a new gameshow that was making waves in the Netherlands. She initially declined, citing family commitments (Winkleman has three children with her film producer husband Kris Thykier, with the children reportedly aged between 13 and 22 years old).
“So very sweetly [BBC director of unscripted] Kate [Phillips] asked me to do it. And they said, 'It's three weeks in Scotland.' I've been to the countryside twice, and I just never leave London. And I was like, 'Well, thank you so much, but like, no,’” Winkleman told RadioTimes in 2022.
“I'm going to assume 50 people said no, but I just said, ‘No, I can't because my daughter's doing GCSEs and I like to lick the little one and I mean, my big one is older but still, I just like to follow him around.’”
Curiosity got the better of Winkleman, who watched a few episodes of De Verraders to get a feel of the show. “I watched the Dutch version and I mean, nobody [in my family] got fed,” Winkleman recalled. “I didn't brush my teeth. I was so obsessed that then I had to phone Kate and I said, ‘I've booked a train, I'm going to Scotland now.’ She was like, ‘Filming doesn't start for months.’
“So it's a privilege, I am so lucky. I got so deep like never before. I would phone my husband – I think he was my husband, I didn't even care. He was like, ‘I think [the] French [GCSE] went well,’ and I was like, ‘You're not gonna believe what [contestant] Will has done.’”
The Traitors was an immediate hit, with each season further catapulting Winkleman’s public profile — much to her surprise. “We didn’t foresee this. We went to Scotland with the amazing people who make it and a pair of red fingerless gloves and gave it our best shot,” she told Grazia in January.
Rumours of a potential chat show have been circulating since the start of the year, with sources telling the Daily Mail: “It’s the perfect job for Claudia.” These rumblings only grew when Winkleman and Daly tendered their Strictly resignation in October 2025, with their final appearance broadcast just last week. “Thank you again for watching us over the years, it has meant a world to us,” Winkleman told viewers during Strictly's Christmas Day special.
But the world of late night chat show hosting is an infamously male dominated one, both in the US and the UK. Only a few female British presenters have attempted to join the rankings of Jonathan Ross, Alan Carr and Graham Norton, and none have managed to achieve any sort of real longevity. Davina McCall attempted it in 2006 with self-titled chat show Davina, only for it to be axed after just one season. The Charlotte Church Show was launched in the same year, lasting for a comparably mammoth three seasons before it was cancelled in 2008. There was The Sarah Millican Television Programme in 2013, which also ran for three seasons, and Sara Cox’s The Girlie Show, which ran for just over a year from 1996 to 1997.
A woman being handed a late night chat show is one thing, getting people to watch it is something else entirely. But Winkleman is a national treasure: will her fate be different? We’ll have to wait until spring 2026 to find out.
