Radio DJ Vernon Kay says the secret to his marriage with Tess Daly is being brave enough to “bite your lip” and talk through your issues.
The 50-year-old TV Radio 2 star and Strictly Come Dancing presenter Tess, 55, have been married since 2003 and their relationship has been tested at times, most notably when Vernon was caught sexting former Page 3 model Rhian Sugden in 2010.
Vernon went on to apologise to Tess both privately and on air on his old Radio 1 show. And he has now opened up on what makes his and Tess’ union so strong for more than a decade, insisting that they are both brave enough to speak openly about any problems in their relationship.
Speaking on the Changes podcast, he said: “Marriage is a rollercoaster, you have peaks and troughs and what I’ve learnt from the whole of that is that it’s really difficult to talk but it’s really easy to talk. You’ve got to bite your lip and go, ‘I’m going to say this.’ Because there's always a swell of something that either you're feeling in your relationship or I'm feeling in my relationship and instead of letting it boil over, what we've learnt is bite your lip, say it.
"Put the kettle on, say it: 'I don't think we should be doing this, maybe we should be doing that, I'm feeling this...' Do you know what I mean? Communication is the most important thing in anything and particularly in a relationship, you've just got to say it, bite your lip. Don't go to the pub, bite your lip and say it."
Former Family Fortunes host Vernon also insists that he and Tess respect each other’s evolution as people and have allowed one another to grow. Asked by host Annie McManus if the secret to longevity was learning to communicate, Vernon added: "I think being able to talk is, yeah. Being able to talk is. And then understanding that you're still, even as you're going through the years or decades, you're still changing, you're still evolving as a person, you know, so you might not necessarily be the person that the other person married or you're changing. So it's that evolution that you need to coincide with your partner and that can only be done through communication."
Vernon - who has two daughters Phoebe and Amber with his wife - insists that meeting Tess is the biggest and best thing to have happened in his life, and he can still vividly remember their first kiss in Fabric nightclub in London. He said: “I think meeting meeting Tess was a really good life changer because prior to that I hadn’t really met a woman. Tess had just come off the back of her modelling career and was independent and she just opened my eyes to a whole new world, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is unbelievable.’ I knew right away.
“We met at the BBC Music and Entertainment Christmas party. We’d been working together briefly and we knew this was the night where he fancies you and she kind of likes you type thing and then we went to Fabric and we snogged on the balcony of Fabric, that was our first kiss. I’m quite pleased with that. Then we stayed on the phone for ages afterwards and then we met the following day and that was it then. We got married in 2003 and Phoebe was born in 2004.”
Vernon said he and Tess also still tried to keep some things private and out of the spotlight to help their romance and relationship. He said: “Keep it private and precious, I think that's the key. There's no value on privacy, it's priceless because it's very difficult to maintain.”
In 2010, Vernon told listeners to his BBC Radio 1 show he had made "foolish" decisions, saying: "I've disappointed and let down a lot of people. To my family and everybody, I'm very sorry," he said. He now hosts his own mid-morning show on Radio2 after a successful stint on I’m A Celebrity in 2020.
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