She received an MBE this month, and with recent pictures of Davina McCall showing her looking happy and healthy in her bikini on holiday in the Maldives, it’s clear that the presenter really is having one of her best decades yet.
And alongside her six-pack and beaming smile, the TUI ambassador, 56, attributes her confidence to moving past what others think of her and putting herself first in her 50s.
She has previously said, “It’s a time of shedding the shackles of inhibition and of giving a damn… Because I haven’t always felt like that.
“I don’t really care what people think, which is very liberating. I don’t look as good naked as I did in my twenties. But I feel better, and that’s the difference. I walk around like a foxy minx now because I feel like a foxy minx.”
Davina, who is mum to three children – Holly, 22, Tilly, 20, and Chester, 17, with ex-husband Matthew Robertson – also appears fitter than ever and regularly shares her intense workouts with fans.
Davina exercises at least four days a week, doing a mix of workouts from her fitness website, OYG, which include combat, aerobics, HIIT and weights sessions, as well as running, Pilates and yoga. On her rest days, she continues to walk her dog in full workout gear for an hour and a half.
When Davina featured in Closer’s Fridge Raider last year, The Masked Singer judge revealed a diet rich in protein, fish and fresh vegetables and fruit.
As she practises intermittent fasting – where you typically eat during an eight-hour window and fast for 16 hours – Davina has a breakfast protein shake at 10am, bangers or chicken breast with mash and steamed vegetables for lunch, and a veg-packed ramen topped with grilled salmon for dinner.
Davina’s love life is thriving, too. She was briefly married to Andrew Leggett before marrying second husband Matthew in 2000. The pair split in 2017 – an experience she described as “traumatic” – and she then began dating celebrity hairstylist Michael Douglas in 2019 after two decades of friendship.
And while Davina is coy about her sex life with Michael, 49, she’s dropped hints that their romance is still thriving.
Last year she said, “You don’t give up on intimacy and sex when you’re in your forties, fifties and sixties.
“Actually, they could be the sexiest time of your life, when the baggage of kids is gone, they’ve all flown the nest, and you can actually go for it again!
“Women over 50 feel sexy, we can dress sexily and we can wear underwear and we still enjoy orgasms.”
And last year, Davina revealed she even enjoys orgasms in her sleep, adding, “I’ve had an orgasm in my sleep. Several. It’s great.”
However, Davina’s most important personal mission has been to educate and empower women going through the menopause and perimenopause, after struggling with her own experience at 44.
“I felt like I was disappearing… very lonely and isolated… It’s only when you come out of the 'grey’ that you realise you haven’t belly-laughed for months,” she said of her experience.
On the physical effects of her menopausal journey, she added, “I felt spectacularly unattractive during my sweaty nights and my sore, dry vagina and my dry skin – and my brain fog. None of this made me feel sexy.”
She has now vowed to “fight for as long as she can” for women’s access to HRT – hormone replacement
therapy – treatment.
On looking after her health, she now says, “At this stage of my life it’s so important [to] look after myself so I can literally have the best time ever. I used to look at the 50s and think, ‘It’s over, once you turn 50 – that’s it’.”
And her words of wisdom don’t stop there. When a viewer told her to “cover up” on social media in 2021, Davina’s reply later went viral on Twitter. She quipped, “Really sorry. Absolutely no chance of demure over here Sue… growing old disgracefully is far more fun.”
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