Despite being on TV and working as a radio presenter, Strictly’s Wynne Evans’ children were sleeping in tents due to one life-changing event.
Opera singer Wynne, who has just been axed from the Strictly Come Dancing UK tour for making a sexual remark, is best known for his role as larger than life fictional character Gio Compario in the Go.Compare adverts.
The 53-year-old also presents his own show on BBC Radio Wales.
However, despite putting on a happy front at his work, Wynne was living in a derelict house and was going through a really tough time in his life, writes The Mirror.
Wynne has previously described his house in Cardiff as “sad” and revealed there was “no glass in the windows”.
The dad-of-two had no choice but to buy the property nine years ago, even though he didn’t want to, because he’d split from his wife of 16 years, Tanwen.
Evans shared details of the difficult patch on the Speaking on The Starting Line podcast with Rich Leigh.
He 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.”
The windows in the property were boarded up because there was no glass in them but the house 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 Wynne’s children came to visit him 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.”
But Wynne took on the project and worked 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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