Claudia Anne Irena Winkleman (born 15 January 1972) is an English broadcaster and writer. She co-presented the BBC One dance competition Strictly Come Dancing (2010–2025) and hosts the BBC One reality series The Traitors (2022–present), the latter of which won her a BAFTA award in 2023. She hosted the Saturday mid-morning show on BBC Radio 2 from 2020 to 2024. Winkleman was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2025 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting.
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Early life
Claudia Anne Irena Winkleman was born in the Westminster district of London into a Jewish family on 15 January 1972, the daughter of author and journalist Eve Pollard and book publisher Barry Winkleman. She grew up in the Hampstead area of London.
Her parents divorced when she was three. Her father's marriage to children's author Cindy Black produced a half-sister, actress Sophie Winkleman, who married Lord Frederick Windsor. Her mother's marriage to Nicholas Lloyd gave her a half-brother, Oliver.
Winkleman was educated at the City of London School for Girls before attending New Hall, Cambridge, where she graduated in art history.
Career
Television
In 1992, Winkleman began appearing frequently in the long-running BBC series Holiday, and this continued throughout the mid-1990s. This culminated in a special documentary in which she travelled around the world for 34 days, reporting from Japan, India, Costa Rica and Dubai. Throughout this period, she appeared as a reporter on other shows, particularly This Morning, interviewing various celebrities. During the late 1990s, Winkleman presented a number of programmes on smaller digital channels. She had a stint on the cable channel L!VE TV, but soon left to pursue other projects. In 1996, Winkleman hosted Granada programmes God's Gift (taking over from Davina McCall) and Pyjama Party (co-hosted with Katie Puckrik and Michelle Kelly).
Winkleman also presented a number of gameshows, including the dating show Three's a Crowd, LWT show Talking Telephone Numbers, the second series of Granada TV show God's Gift, and Fanorama. In 1997 she was the co-host of children's Saturday morning TV show Tricky. She was also an occasional team captain on a gameshow called HeadJam, hosted by Vernon Kay.
Winkleman's first major television job was in 2001, on the regional discussion programme Central Weekend. Between 2002 and 2004, Winkleman began her first daily television role when she hosted the BBC Three Entertainment update show Liquid News, taking over from Christopher Price on the now defunct BBC Choice. She shared the presenting duties with Colin Paterson, and later Paddy O'Connell. The show featured celebrity interviews.
In 2003, Fame Academy appointed Winkleman to present a daily update show on BBC Three, in conjunction with its second series. She repeated the show in 2005 for the much shorter celebrity version Comic Relief Does Fame Academy. Also in 2005, Winkleman co-hosted The House of Tiny Tearaways, a BBC Three reality TV show. She also began hosting Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two, a supplementary programme to Strictly Come Dancing.
Winkleman then presented several more reality shows, including End of Story and Art School.
Winkleman, along with Graham Norton, hosted the first annual Eurovision Dance Contest, which was held on 1 September 2007, in London, England. The format was based on the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing and the EBU's Eurovision Song Contest. Norton and Winkleman also hosted the 2008 contest in Glasgow, Scotland.
Writing
Winkleman started her journalism career as a travel writer, writing columns about her various worldwide excursions in The Sunday Times and The Independent, and the free daily paper Metro. She began to write more general work, opinion-led lifestyle journalism about womanhood, sex and relationships. She wrote for Cosmopolitan and Tatler amongst others. Between 2005 and 2008, she wrote a regular weekly column for The Independent called Take It From Me.
Radio
In April and May 2008, Winkleman hosted a six-part comedy quiz series taking a humorous look into the week's celebrity gossip, called Hot Gossip. The show was broadcast on a Saturday afternoon on BBC Radio 2; points were awarded to those who dished out dirt. The show featured pundits including Will Smith, Phil Nichol, Jo Caulfield, Rufus Hound and Jonathan Ross' brother, Paul.
She hosted a weekly show on BBC Radio 2 every Friday night between 10pm and midnight called Claudia Winkleman's Arts Show, consisting of interviews with people from the arts world, as well as reviews and debate. In July 2010, Winkleman sat in for Dermot O'Leary. She covered for Ken Bruce on several occasions from 2012 until 2014.
In April 2016, she began presenting her own Sunday night show on BBC Radio 2 called Claudia on Sunday from 7 to 9pm. In June 2017, Winkleman covered for Steve Wright in the Afternoon from 2 to 5pm.
In 2020, Claudia on Sunday was displaced from the schedules and subsequently ended due to the COVID pandemic. It was announced on 23 November 2020 that Winkleman had taken over the Saturday mid-morning slot on BBC Radio 2 from Graham Norton. Winkleman's last Saturday morning show was broadcast on 23 March 2024, with Romesh Ranganathan taking over.
Charity
In 2007, Winkleman answered telephones at the BT Tower for the Disasters Emergency Committee in response to a humanitarian crisis in Darfur. In May 2007, she helped relaunch The National Missing Persons Campaign, and also supported a Christmas campaign by the charity Refuge, which aimed to stop domestic violence.
On 18 March 2011, Winkleman was one of the presenters of BBC's Comic Relief.
In 2012, Winkleman was one of the judges and the host of the FilmNation shorts at the British Film Institute, which, as part of the Cultural Olympiad for the 2012 Summer Olympics, encouraged people aged 14–25 to get involved in filmmaking.
In March 2025, Winkleman was appointed a trustee of the British Museum. She said of the appointment: "I am deeply honoured to join the Museum's Board of Trustees and hope that I can in some small way help it to continue its mission to curate, conserve and explain our history for the benefit and education of all."
Personal life
In June 2000, Winkleman married film producer Kris Thykier at Marylebone Town Hall. They live in Connaught Square, Westminster and have two sons (born 2003 and 2011) and a daughter (born 2006).
On 31 October 2014, Winkleman's eight-year-old daughter was taken to hospital after being seriously injured when her Halloween costume caught fire. Winkleman stated that the costume had brushed against a lit candle in a pumpkin. The incident prompted the UK government to tighten the flame retardant standards of Halloween costumes.
Winkleman was born with severe myopia and has undergone multiple surgeries on her eyes.
Her half-sister, Sophie, married into the British royal family when she became the wife of Lord Frederick Windsor, the son of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent.
Honours and awards
Winkleman was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2025 Birthday Honours for services to broadcasting.