Davina McCall

Davina Lucy Pascale McCall (born 16 October 1967 ) is an English television presenter.

Davina Lucy Pascale McCall was born on 16 October 1967 in Wimbledon, London, to a French mother, Florence (née Hennion) and an English father, Andrew McCall, a graphic designer and events organiser for Portsmouth Harbour Authority.

At the age of three she went to live with her paternal grandparents in Surrey after the break-up of her parents' marriage.

Her mother Florence—whom McCall has described as something of a "wild child" and later, specifically as "an alcoholic"—returned to Paris, and McCall saw her only when on holidays.

McCall attended St Catherine's School, Bramley near Guildford, Surrey and Godolphin and Latymer Girls School, a private school in Hammersmith, West London.

At secondary level, McCall studied for nine O levels and two A levels.

McCall's first career was as a singer, and she had been performing in a band, Lazy Bear, while still at school.

By the age of 19, she had decided to pursue a professional career as a solo classical artist, and briefly commenced classical vocal coaching.

Dissatisfied with her lack of success in the music industry, McCall gave up singing and took a job at Models 1 on the men's desk as a booker.

Later she ran a restaurant for two years before a brief spell in Paris as a Moulin Rouge-style cabaret performer.

On her return to London she worked on the nightclub scene as a hostess.

Work in this period also included an appearance as a dancer in the video for the 1991 Kylie Minogue single "Word Is Out", wearing a striped sweater and beret in a nod to her French ancestry.

In 1994, McCall was hired as a presenter on Ray Cokes' Most Wanted on MTV Europe.

She then presented Hitlist UK.

In 1995, she went on to host the ITV late night game show God's Gift.

She also hosted Channel 4's Streetmate (1998–2001, 2016), The Million Pound Drop (2010–2015), Five Minutes to a Fortune (2013), and The Jump (2014–2017), as well as ITV's The Biggest Loser (2011–2012), Long Lost Family (2011–present), and This Time Next Year (2016–2019).

In 1998, McCall hosted cult dating show Streetmate in which she toured the country meeting single people and matching them up.

McCall was chosen as the presenter of the inaugural series of Big Brother, in which ten housemates entered a sealed house for up to nine weeks and their every move was filmed and then broadcast as a daily highlights television show.

McCall hosted the weekly live eviction show, where one contestant would be removed from the house, until the last housemate became the winner.

She was the presenter of the reality show Big Brother during its run on Channel 4 between 2000 and 2010.

McCall also hosted the celebrity version Celebrity Big Brother, the first series of which ran for eight days in March 2001.

McCall was a regular co-presenter of the Comic Relief annual telethons from 2005 to 2015.

McCall's performance on the final night of the sixth series in 2005 attracted press attention and some complaints for her treatment of housemate Makosi Musambasi.

In December 2007, McCall presented a New Year's edition of The Friday Night Project, entitled The Friday Night New Year Project 2007.

By the ninth series of Big Brother in 2008, McCall was earning a reported £85,000 per episode.

Responding to tabloid claims before the series that she was about to quit Big Brother she said, "I'm not leaving ... They would have to kill me before I'd stop doing it".

The ninth series proved to be a low point, however, becoming the least watched summer series in the show's history.

McCall became the regular presenter of the live Big Brother companion show Big Brother's Big Mouth for the tenth and eleventh series, after it was re-formatted into an hour-long show after the weekly live eviction show, having previously occupied the slot after each daily highlights show.

From 2010 to 2014, McCall presented the Sky One dance competition show Got to Dance.

With audience figures falling, Channel 4 decided that the eleventh series in summer 2010 would be the last Big Brother broadcast on their channel, although the show's future was in the hands of the rights holder Endemol.

After presenting the seventh and final series of Celebrity Big Brother in January 2010, she fronted her eleventh and final regular edition over the summer.

As a finale to the series on Channel 4, McCall also presented the Ultimate Big Brother show, which started immediately after the main series, and featured selected past celebrity and non-celebrity housemates.

Having made the decision to leave the show after Ultimate Big Brother, McCall confirmed she would not be returning as host when Channel 5 announced in April 2011 that they had secured the rights to relaunch Big Brother in summer 2011.

She gave her backing to Emma Willis as her replacement, stating she still believed the show had potential.

Big Brother 2 and Ultimate Big Brother winner Brian Dowling was ultimately chosen to take over McCall's role as presenter of the Channel 5 version, though in 2013 Emma Willis became his successor as the new presenter.

In between the final celebrity and regular editions of Big Brother on Channel 4, McCall began presenting a new game show, The Million Pound Drop.

The final episode aired on 20 March 2015, with the primetime series axed in 2016.

On 14 July 2017, it was announced that the format would return as a daytime series under the name The £100K Drop.

Since 2020, she has been a judge on the ITV musical competition show The Masked Singer, and since 2021, a spin-off of the show, The Masked Dancer.

McCall was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting.