Tom Daley reveals his fears for minority communities and how he's smashing knitting stereotypes

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

Tom Daley is taking over our TV screens. And there’s not a diving board in sight. In the first week of The Celebrity Traitors, the fabulously sceptical side eye he gave Kate Garraway became the talking point of an already much-talked-about show. And now the Olympic gold medallist is hoping to do for knitting what The Great British Bake Off did for the Victoria sponge.

That’s why we’re here, on a gorgeous summer’s day in rural Ayrshire on the west coast of Scotland, with Daley salivating about what’s in front of him – wools of all colours, textures and thicknesses, and knitting needles that range from pipe-cleaner thin to the positively pornographic. We’re in the “Yarn Barn” on a picturesque farm where Game of Wool is being filmed. The aim of the new Channel 4 reality series is to find Britain’s best amateur knitter.

More than a decade since Daley made his TV reality-show debut in Splash!, mentoring celebrity divers, this is his first presenting gig, and he’s loving it. He tells me about the wonders of knitting and crochet and talks so fast I can barely keep up. “It’s amazing what you can achieve in such a short time with just two needles or a crochet hook, and the benefits you get from knitting and crochet are just unparalleled.

“It’s the thing that allows me to get away from everything and be creative, present and to unwind. I stop thinking about all the things that have been in the past and are coming in the future, you’re just in the moment, and I think it’s the superpower that helped me get to an Olympic gold in Tokyo because there was so much time to overthink in the Covid Games, whereas when I was knitting I was able to stay focused and in the moment.” Finally, he takes a breath.

Was he ever as enthusiastic about diving? “I don’t think so and that’s because diving always had pressure around it. Maybe the contestants will feel quite pressured in the Yarn Barn because they want to impress the judges, designers and knitting experts Di [Gilpin] and Sheila [Greenwell].” He’s right. I’ve seen the first two episodes and the show is surprisingly tense when the contestants face tough deadlines, find themselves out of their comfort zone, and realise they’re in danger of being knocked out. For them, this seems every bit as pressured as diving was for Daley at the Olympics.

He has been through so much and has been in the public eye for so long, yet he still looks so boyish that it’s hard to believe he’s 31. There have been so many fantastic achievements and a fair few traumas along the way. Since he retired from diving last year, we are discovering more about the real Tom Daley. Not only are we seeing his fun side, he’s also now free to expose some of the more unsavoury aspects of elite sport.

By the time Britain’s most decorated diver retired for real last year (his first, short-lived retirement was after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics; actually held in 2021 because of Covid), he’d competed in five Olympic Games, winning five medals (gold, silver and three bronzes). Astonishingly, he was only 14 when he made his Olympic debut in 2008. He won his first bronze at London 2012, finally clinched gold at Tokyo in the 10m synchro with Matty Lee, and finished as Britain’s most decorated diver with a silver in Paris last year.

Does he find presenting easy compared with diving? “It’s a lot less physically demanding.” And less painful? “You don’t hurt your head as much! You don’t do belly flops and, as I’ve got to know the judges and the contestants better, it’s become like a family. A woolly family!” He smiles. “It’s been really nice to be able to unleash that different side of me.”

He also hopes the show challenges sexist and ageist clichés about knitting. “It shouldn’t be boxed into a certain group of people. I think that’s what this show will prove.” He tells me about one of the contestants, Simon, a former marine who now works on building sites. “What he’s going to do for the stereotypes of knitting is amazing!”

In the show, Simon admits that a stranger saw him knitting and told him that doing a puzzle would be more manly. Daley says he has never received disparaging remarks, but the very fact that his knitting at the Tokyo Olympics became headline news tells its own story. Knitting, he says, has become a metaphor for life. “Every time you unravel your knitting, you’re not starting from scratch, you’re starting from experience.” So rather than berating himself for making mistakes, as he did in the past, he embraced the learning curve. “I started being kinder to myself when I made those mistakes.”

In a world where we are frequently being presented with disturbing images of toxic masculinity, it seems like a great time to show that real men knit. Would he encourage, say, Donald Trump and the tech “broligarchy” to take up knitting? “Are you asking if knitting is going to save the world?” He laughs. “Well, I don’t know if knitting’s going to help them.”

Daley now lives in Los Angeles with his husband, the film-maker Dustin Lance Black, and their two sons, Robbie (seven) and Phoenix (two). He’s been an active campaigner for LGBTQ+ rights and has witnessed so much progress in his lifetime, but now worries about a backlash. Earlier this year, Trump announced he would dismantle diversity, equality and inclusion initiatives. “It’s a scary time for lots of minorities all over the world. And it’s certainly a scary time for minorities in the US. It does feel as if there’s a regression in people’s opinions and thoughts. LA is obviously a bubble compared with the rest of the States, but it’s a big adjustment culturally to move to the US.”

I first interviewed Daley 13 years ago just before the London Olympics. He was a lovely, polite, buttoned up 17-year-old in turmoil, somehow smiling his way through it. His father Rob, who meant everything to him, had recently died from a brain tumour. Meanwhile, the public and the British Olympics team had huge expectations and he was desperate not to disappoint. “There was so much pressure. It was a home Olympic Games. When was I ever going to get a chance to dive in front of a home crowd again, with all my friends and family there? I was also aware that the funding of British diving was sitting on my shoulders because if we didn’t win a medal, funding for diving was going to be cut. So it was huge pressure and I struggled with all kinds of things in the build-up to that – eating disorder issues and anxiety issues.”

He spoke about suffering from bulimia and body dysmorphia earlier this year in the documentary Tom Daley: 1.6 Seconds (the title refers to the duration of a 10m dive from take-off to entering the water). When did he realise he had an eating disorder? “At the end of 2011, I realised that people within British diving were looking at me as not just a diver, but also what I actually looked like. I got told I was overweight.’ That’s ridiculous, I say. “Yep.” He nods. I remember being shocked by how little there was of him at the time.

Who told him he was overweight? “Alexei [Evangulov], the performance director.” Daley says it had a huge impact on him. “I had absolutely no idea what I was doing at that time, so I just cut out food. I was just not fuelling myself appropriately. I wasn’t giving myself enough calories to be able to properly train. I used to get so hungry that I’d binge. Then when I binged, I’d feel so bad that I was bulimic for a while.

“It was a dark time because I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. Men weren’t meant to talk about their eating disorders back then.” His voice becomes louder as he becomes more passionate. “Or their feelings at all. It’s only as the years have gone by that it’s become easier to talk about these things. Once I was able to start sharing some of those things, I was able to get out of that spiral, but it was a year when I was really trying to figure out what I was doing with my body. It really does damage you for a long time.” He pauses.

“I grew up in a time when coaches were able to shout at you,” he says. It was a bullying culture? “Yes. It’s very different now. And this has created a more empowered athlete.” Was it traumatic? “Yes. But I look at it now as something that made me. I wonder if I would have been as good an athlete if I hadn’t had that.” While athletes are treated more respectfully by coaches these days, it also means they are more reliant on self-motivation. “Now,” he says, pointing to his heart, “if you’re going to be the best athlete, you have to have it here and want to do it yourself.”

Daley says he still struggles with body dysmorphia. “My husband’s been a huge support in that. I think it’s a big thing in the gay world, if I’m honest. Some people have very unrealistic body expectations.” He’d like to maintain the body of an athlete. Why? “One, mental health. I like exercising and I like being in shape. Now my training is not to be an Olympic athlete, it’s to be as fit and healthy to live longer for my kids. That’s the most important thing for me. Also whenever I have to do a photo shoot, I usually end up having to strip off at some point, so I have to feel confident enough to do so.”

Despite being in great nick (as viewers of his shower scene on The Celebrity Traitors will attest), he still feels self-conscious at the gym. “As an Olympian, I go to the gym and I hate it because I’m like, ‘Oh my God, everybody’s judging me for how I’m doing this.’ I go to a gym called Equinox in LA, and everybody’s there. I find it intimidating.

I always used to be given a workout in the diving gym and the exercises were very specific, so when I go to the gym now I don’t even know what to do with these machines. So I ended up getting my strength coach to write me some workouts each week.”

Apart from maintaining his six-pack, he says he’s so much easier on himself than before. “I used to put all my self-worth and self-esteem into whether I was doing well or not at diving. As soon as I realised I was more than a diver, I was a parent, husband, friend, son, knitter, it gave me a different perspective and allowed me to flourish.”

Did it take marriage and children to realise that? “Yes, I think so. The biggest wake-up call was going into lockdown. That was when the knitting journey started. It was realising that you can’t control everything, things can change at any moment, so you should appreciate the things that you do have.

“When I went into competition after lockdown, I was grateful that the Olympics even happened, I was grateful that my family had got through the pandemic, and that I could stand on that platform and know that, regardless of whether I did well or terribly, my family was going to love me, whatever the outcome. It was so freeing. In my first few Olympics I tortured myself through the whole experience because I wanted to do well so badly.” In Tokyo, he simply felt, “I’m just going to enjoy it.” And that, of course, is when he won his gold medal.

It’s mid-October, Daley is back in LA and we catch up via video link. The Celebrity Traitors (which was recorded earlier this year) is in its second week on TV, and he says he thoroughly enjoyed his time in it. I compliment him on the woollies he wore on the show, his own designs presumably? Thanks, he says, but he can’t take any credit – the BBC wouldn’t allow him to wear his own brand of knitwear.

Did he knit during filming? “Yeah, any time I was in the hotel I was just knitting, knitting, knitting. You get your phone taken off you, you can’t talk to anyone, you’re just in your room, so I was very glad I had knitting because I think lots of people were bored.” Did he persuade his fellow contestants to knit? “Erm no,” he says diffidently. “We wanted to do a knitting lesson in our downtime, but we never quite got around to it.” He sounds worried that he’s giving too much away. (Spoiler – the night after we speak, he is murdered by the Traitors.)

The great thing about his new TV career, he says, is that it’s fun for the family. “Robbie is a huge fan of The Traitors, and the boys spent some time on the Game of Wool set.” Can they knit yet? “Phoenix is only two! He’s definitely not into it yet. He likes grabbing the wool, then running away with it and unravelling everything. Robbie, to be fair, has made a hat with a knitting loom machine and has crocheted a chain.”

What does he hope we get out of the series? “I’d love to think that more and more people after watching this show will want to get involved. At least try it, pick up a set of knitting needles, pick up a crochet hook and give it a go.” He says if somebody had told him five years ago that he’d become a knitting evangelist, let alone hosting a knitting competition on TV, he would have laughed at them. “But now it forms such a big part of my life. I look forward to it every evening when I sit down after the kids are in bed. Knitting has changed my life, and I think it can do a world of good for so many people.”
Blue loopy jumper: Full look by Stella McCartney @stellamccartney. Green top, pink trousers: Full look by Drew Kent @drewkent_
Photography: Christina Kenohan @christinakernoha_photo; Styling: James Yardley @jamesyardley; Retouching by KickedPixel @kickedpixel; Photography assistant: Paul Reich @paulandrewreich; Styling assistant: Sasha Venn; Grooming: Ana Cruzalegui @anacruzmakeup.

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Game of Wool: Britain's Best Knitter begins Sunday 2nd November at 8pm on Channel 4.

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