Tom Daley: ‘People don’t see how much love we have in our family as same-sex parents’

Tom Daley was just nine years old when he first dived for Great Britain, having started at his local dive club in Plymouth two years earlier. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Daley was Team GB’s youngest team member, aged just 14. He has also competed at the London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020, and Paris 2024 games, winning three bronze medals, one silver and one gold. He is a four-time World Champion, a two-time junior World Champion, a five-time European Champion and a four-time Commonwealth Champion. In 2013, Daley announced his relationship with American film screenwriter, director and producer Dustin Lance Black. The couple married in 2017 and now live in LA with their two sons. In August 2024, Daley retired from professional diving and launched his knitting brand, Made With Love.

Best thing about representing your country?

Growing up, reaching the Olympic Games and representing Team GB had been a childhood dream of mine – to wear the kit, to go to the opening ceremonies. But the best part is having all of the hard work you’ve done with your team pay off in one moment. Being able to have everybody there to support you. It’s a surreal moment when you finally get to do it.

Best moment of your career?

One is obviously winning the Olympic Gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Games. That will always be the best thing I’ll ever have achieved as a diver. But Tokyo was weird [because of the pandemic]. No one was there. You had your teammates, but gradually as the events went on it would empty out because you had to leave as soon as you’d finished, so it was very surreal by the end. Getting to compete in Paris, in front of my family, was probably one of the things I’ll cherish most. It felt like a bonus year for me because I honestly thought I’d retire after Tokyo. I took two years off then came back into the sport. My son inspired me, to be honest. I could say: “This is fun, I can just enjoy it for what it is” – which was quite a liberating experience.

Daley, 14, at the 2008 Beijing Olympics - Getty

Best personality trait?

I am very hard-working and I like to follow through when it comes to my goals. I’m also good at supporting people around me; I understand how much it means for people to reach a goal. Currently it’s all about knitting – that has really become my outlet post-diving, so I’ve been working on lots of patterns and instructions to help people make things. My office is currently a disaster with all kinds of craziness and yarn and things that I’ve been creating. My older son, Robbie, builds loads of Lego, so while I’m in here knitting, he sits and builds Lego; it’s our little creative space.

Daley models his latest creation: the crochet ‘Diet Coke bag’ - Diet Coke

Best thing about becoming a dad?

Being able to see everything again for the first time; you appreciate the little things that you’d usually take for granted. When Robbie was very small and we’d go for walks, we’d look up at the trees and he was amazed by them, and you realise that these things you see every day really are amazing, so you gain a new appreciation for them. Plus, it’s incredibly special to always be the person they’re most excited to see, when your kids come up to you and just want to sit with you, be with you, that’s so wonderful.

Best thing about coming out?

I don’t think I would have ever found true happiness if I hadn’t come out. It felt like I was constantly putting up a mask of how I wanted other people to perceive me, giving people what I thought they wanted, and it was exhausting. So it was liberating to come out and not have to worry about slipping up, hiding who I was or feeling like I was ashamed. Coming out allowed me to be free and without fear of judgement from anyone.

Daley and his screenwriter husband, Lance Black, at the 2018 Writers Guild Awards in LA - Michael Tran/FilmMagic

Best thing about knitting?

It’s my way of being able to switch off from everything. My coach told me I needed to learn to rest and recover, and my husband suggested I should try knitting or crochet because that’s what he’d seen people doing on film sets while they were waiting. I fired up YouTube to learn, gave it a go and became obsessed. I look forward to the time I have to knit – it’s just so calming. The two best knits I’ve done are my Olympic jumpers, which I have hanging in my office. I made one in Tokyo which started it all off, then I made another in Paris – to have these things for the rest of my life from the Olympics, which I made… I think that’s pretty cool.

Daley knitting in the stands at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics - ReutersAdvertisementAdvertisement#«R2iekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R4iekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe

Best celebrity encounter you’ve ever had?

The person who I think is genuinely the nicest, smartest, kindest, most selfless, most generous and all-round lovely human being is Emma Watson. She’s everything you imagine or hope she’d be. We’d spoken online but only met a few years ago at some event and we hit it off. Obviously – on a much greater level than me – she became very famous very young, so we spoke about what that was like for each of us. I will always feel very privileged to know Emma. However, the one I was most starstruck by was Gemma Collins, who I taught to dive on ITV’s Splash! She’s hilarious. Whenever she’s in a room with anyone, she just commands the space, it’s quite incredible really.

Worst thing about diving?

Getting wet. I know that comes with the territory but in the mornings, especially in the winter and especially when I was training in outdoor pools in LA, it gets quite cold. It’d be maybe eight degrees and I’d have to get in the pool and do all of my dives outside. The moment when you first get in that cold pool and get wet, that was always the worst bit. Plus the chlorine. I always say I’m wearing my signature cologne: eau de chlorine.

Daley (left) and Noah Williams training at the Olympic Aquatics Centre ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, July 2024 - Getty

Worst personality trait?

I’m a stickler for a schedule; I like to know what I’m doing, where I’m going. I think it’s the athlete in me who likes a plan and likes to be able to do things on time, whereas my husband is very much on the more creative side. He’s like: “Let’s just go with the flow, let’s see what time we get there.” It drives me mad. I’m one of those people who gets mad at my husband when we’re running late for the imaginary schedule I have in my head, which I haven’t told him about.

Worst thing that has ever been written about you?

People always have their opinions. I don’t think there’s ever anything that’s been too crazy bad. The things I take to heart most are if anybody writes anything about us as parents – I struggle with that. Some people don’t necessarily see how much love we have in our family as same-sex parents and how we really want to do the best we can to be the best parents we can. So when anybody writes anything negative about me or my husband as parents, that hits pretty hard. But also I know the way that it goes with social media – it is what it is. It’s just an opinion someone has, so whatever.

Worst thing about competing for Team GB?

A lot of pressure to perform. That’s kind of what makes it fun, too, but when I was younger I used to find it difficult to deal with. There’s a lot of guilt if you don’t achieve what you’d hoped to achieve – you feel like you’ve really let people down. I suppose there’s always perspective; there’s always something going on in your life which feels more stressful that puts other things into perspective. I was doing my A-Levels in 2012 while training for the Olympics. Whenever I was doing schoolwork that felt more stressful than diving, and whenever I was diving that felt more stressful than A-Levels. Since becoming a parent, I’ve been able to realise that my family will love me regardless of how I perform, so the pressure stops mattering so much.

Worst thing about becoming a household name so young?

Whenever I was out of the house I was always “on”. I never knew who might be watching. Not that I wanted to do anything too crazy, but you’re always hyper-vigilant about everything rather than just being able to be present and in the moment with your friends. I struggled with that a lot. I’m grateful for all the cool things I was able to do as a result, but there’s always that feeling that there was somebody watching what I was doing at all times. That was tough.

Daley attends the 2025 Wimbledon Championships in London - PA Wire

Worst childhood memory?

In terms of my young childhood, I used to get really homesick when I was away competing. One time I was in Australia; I was 10 years old, on the other side of the planet, jet-lagged, not able to sleep, and I remember feeling incredibly homesick. I used to love being at the competition, but as soon as it was night-time there’d be so much time to overthink, I’d downward spiral. My parents would always reassure me that I didn’t have to go if I didn’t want to but I did want to, so eventually I grew out of it.

Worst thing about wearing Speedos so much?

You’re very exposed. Growing up I never really thought about it, because it was just the uniform – and they do work: nothing falls out of place when you’re hitting the water at 35mph. But, when I got a bit older, I was told by my performance directors that I had to get in better shape and suddenly I felt quite exposed. Still, it’s part and parcel of diving. There aren’t many people who wear more clothes to bed than they do to work, so that was fun.

Worst annoyance?

You know what drives me mad? When you go to wash the dishes in the sink, and someone leaves a bunch of bits of food in the plughole which you have to fish out. Usually I’ll cook and Lance does the dishes, and his idea of doing the dishes is taking them from the table and putting them in the sink. Personally, I’d think about putting them in the dishwasher. I try to be very mindful about the amount of dishes I use, whereas when he cooks he uses every single cooking utensil in the world and leaves it for me to clean up. Whether you’re gay or straight, there’s always someone in every relationship who has to deal with that, I think.

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Tom Daley has created the ultimate summer accessory: the Diet Coke crochet bag. Keen to get your hands on one? Keep a close eye on @DietCokeGBI

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