BBC Strictly Come Dancing's Wynne Evans 'living in a house with no windows or heating'

Strictly Come Dancing’s Wynne Evans was living in a derelict house and sleeping in a bedroom with no windows even though he was famous and working as a presenter and TV star

Despite working as a radio presenter and starring in TV adverts, Strictly Wynne Evans’ children were sleeping in tents due to a life-changing event.

Opera singer Wynne Evans - currently starring in Strictly Come Dancing with professional partner Katya Jones - is best known for his role as larger than life fictional character Gio Compario in the Go.Compare adverts. He’s also the host of his own show on BBC Radio Wales where it’s his job to "cheer the nation" and his jolly countenance and huge smile certainly seems to fit the part perfectly.

So it may come as something of a surprise for fans to learn that for a period of his time in the spotlight, Wynne was living in a derelict house and was going through a really tough personal period. Wynne has previously described his house in Cardiff as "sad" and revealed there was "no glass in the windows".

Unfortunately Wynne, now 52, had no choice but to buy the property eight years ago, even though he didn't want to, because he’d split from his wife of 16 years, Tanwen. The couple had shared a family home with their two children, which is where Wynne wanted to stay. He shared details of the difficult patch on the Speaking on The Starting Line podcast with Rich Leigh according to Wales Online and said: "It was a really sad house, because it was derelict, and I moved here after a divorce. I didn’t want to move here, I wanted to stay married. So I bought it and it just became sad. It was a sad place."

He revealed that the windows were boarded up because there was no glass in them but the property was the size he needed and it was all he could afford. He continued: "I was living in a bedroom, bearing in mind I’m presenting everyday on Radio Wales, I was doing GoCompare, I was doing all these things and people thought I was successful but I was living in a bedroom with no windows, with no glass in them."

When his children came to visit their dad they had to sleep in tents, so he made their bedrooms a priority and installed new heating because the old system blew up. "I said to the estate agent, ‘this is not for me this house, this house is definitely not for me’. The house was an absolute tip, the garden was beautiful, I don’t know what the guy was doing here before. It was just terrible."

Despite his reluctance to purchase the house, there was a strange sign that encouraged him. For years his late mum had bought him Drambuie as a gift for Christmas, which led to his love of the spirit. When he looked around the garden at the house, bizarrely there was a line of Drambuie bottles against a wall, which was the deciding factor for him.

Since taking the plunge Wynne has worked hard to restore the period property and now each room is decorated in his unique and quirky style. "I’ve got quite a strange taste I guess – quite a flamboyant taste," he explained to Wales Online. "My bedroom I suppose is kind of out there - I've got a picture of John Inman and Mrs Slocombe from the TV show Are You Being Served? in pop art above my bed with a retro neon pink Welsh blanket on the bed and bright yellow walls. It’s very eclectic and very different."

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