Sian Welby: Morning TV’s Rising Star Goes Braless and Opens Up About Love and Heartache

HALFWAY through her This Morning presenting debut last month, Siân Welby realised she’d made a rookie error.

Her denim & Other Stories belted jumpsuit might have looked great on camera, but when you’re doing live TV and only have a three-minute advert break in which to dash to the loo, it was the most impractical item of clothing she could possibly chosen.

Siân is wary of reading too much into the ‘new Holly Willoughby’ headlinesCredit: Mark Hayman

Sian goes braless as she stuns in a photoshoot for Fabulous MagazineCredit: Mark Hayman

“I genuinely didn’t have time to wee!” she says.

“The belt was kind of stapled in and three minutes wouldn’t have been enough to run to the toilet, get out of the jumpsuit and get back in front of the cameras again.

“Rochelle Humes said that when she’s hosting and needs the loo, she literally counts the seconds from the start of the ad break as she runs out of the studio. As long as she’s done everything by 60 seconds, she knows she’s fine.

“But yeah, lesson learned. Easy-access trousers from now on!”

Jumpsuit slip-ups aside, Capital Breakfast host Siân’s week on the ITV daytime show was deemed a roaring success, with high praise from viewers, commentators and, reportedly, a very impressed This Morning editor Martin Frizell, who is said to “adore” her.

She also drew inevitable comparisons to former host Holly Willoughby, who quit the show in October last year after 14 years. But Siân, 37, is wary of reading too much into the “new Holly” headlines.

“I reckon if you stepped into any job where somebody had been there for years, you’d get comparisons.

“I’m obviously not offended by it because I love Holly, she’s an idol to me. I see it as a massive compliment! But at the same time, I don’t read anything into it. In showbusiness, you can’t overthink anything and I’m just grateful I got to do that week. I’d love to do more.”

Siân had already appeared on This Morning as a roving reporter and showbiz expert when bosses asked her last year if she fancied covering the main hosting role at some point.

Just a few weeks later, and before she’d really had a chance to get her head around it, she found herself standing next to Dermot O’Leary for the biggest moment of her career so far. It was sink or swim.

She says: “Dermot was very patient and calming, and I knew he wasn’t going to let me fall. If I made a mistake or said something wrong, he’d have my back.

“The whole team there is incredible. If they hadn’t made the environment so chilled, I would have been a nervous wreck!

“It feels like a fever dream now. Like, did that actually happen? And it’s kind of addictive, because you get such an adrenalin rush. I did Monday to Thursday, and on the Friday it was a bit of a comedown from being on such a high.

“But then, seeing comments saying I was a breath of fresh air was lovely. As the new kid on the block, I was bracing myself for some negativity, but wow, people really did give me a chance and didn’t just write me off. I was so touched by that.”

She might be seen as the newbie, but Siân is far from an overnight success.

The Nottingham-born presenter had already been plugging away for several years, attending auditions and taking on small presenting and producing gigs in between working at New Look, when she finally landed a break as the Channel 5 weather presenter in 2010, after she was spotted in an advert on TV. 

“It’s not always the job you think you want, but it maybe leads to the one you do. I never had weather in my brain. I was terrible at geography!

“To this day, I don’t know where anywhere is. They mock me on Capital Breakfast for not knowing any capital city, and yet there I was having to point to places on the UK map. I was thrown in at the deep end, but it was my route to London and meant I could afford my rent,” she says.

The Nottingham-born has already been plugging away for several yearsCredit: Mark Hayman

Dermot was very patient and calming, and I knew he wasn’t going to let me fall. said SianCredit: Ken McKay/ITV/Rex/Shutterstock

Siân made sure she stood out, injecting puns and personality into the weather bulletins, and it wasn’t long before she was noticed by radio bosses who invited her to do “bits and pieces” on Capital Breakfast.

With a foot in the door, by 2017 she was hosting the 7-10pm weekday slot on sister station Heart, before replacing Vick Hope on Capital Breakfast in March 2020.

She says she clicked with fellow presenters Roman Kemp and Sonny Jay (who Chris Stark took over from in October 2022) instantly.

The award-winning morning radio show boasts 2.6 million weekly listeners (apparently including the Princess of Wales) and regularly attracts some of the biggest names in showbiz as guests.

“The big celebs who have stood the test of time and who still love what they do and also appreciate that you’ve got a job to do, are always the best,” says Siân.

‘You never adapt’

“So, someone like P!nk is always brilliant to interview and happy to play a silly game, too – I got her to eat Marmite straight out of the jar and she was just so funny about it. I also got to electrocute Chris Pratt with a cattle prod, and Margot Robbie is like your best mate, she’s such a girl’s girl. I’ve never met someone so warm and friendly and she’s been consistent every time.”

What Siân isn’t such a big fan of, however, is the early-morning starts.

“You never adapt. Right now, I’m talking in jet-lag mode. Roman’s better at surviving on minimal sleep, but I need to go to bed at 8.30pm, because I’m shattered. 

“My alarm goes off at 4.15am. I’m up by 4.30am and have to leave the house by 5am. I can do a quick turnaround. I  can shower, wash my hair, get dressed and put my make-up on in that half hour. But it’s a very surreal existence.”

Luckily, her fiancé Jake Beckett is on the same hours in his job as a producer on the breakfast show at Heart, hosted by Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden and which broadcasts from the same Global HQ building in central London.

“We’re both getting up at the crack of dawn and going to bed like old biddies, so we’re in sync!” says Siân.

The two shows are direct competitors, which means Siân and Jake are sworn enemies when it comes to work.

“Oh my god, we are! We’ve got a funny relationship with stuff like that. He’ll go: ‘So… who have you got in this week?’ or ‘What are you doing with Ed Sheeran?’

“Well, I’m not telling you! He’ll talk to me about listening figures or the numbers on social media and whether his are better than mine. Sometimes he’ll say, through gritted teeth, that I did something good.

“We’re very much each other’s hype man, and he was over the moon that I was doing This Morning, but when it comes to radio, we hate each other. It’s war!”

What began as a work friendship blossomed into something more during the 2020 lockdown. Communicating via text messages and phone calls, Siân realised she was falling for Jake, 31.

“Because we couldn’t do anything or go anywhere, we started texting and chatting more and discovered we had loads in common when it came to music and TV.

Romantic proposal

“He’d recommend albums and we’d text each other all the way through TV shows. When lockdown started easing and you could meet for a walk in the park, we did that even though it was freezing and you had to be two metres apart!

“I started to think: ‘I quite fancy you…’ He’s a cheeky London chappy and he’s so open about his feelings, a real heart-on-his-sleeve kind of guy. I’d got to know him on such a different level.”

Jake proposed during a boat trip on holiday in Greece last summer, taking Siân completely by surprise.

“He’s a producer by nature – a meticulous planner who will spend three weeks deciding on a pair of trainers. He’s the guy that maps out a holiday like we’re doing some sort of Mission Impossible thing, scoping the place out as if I’m the president.

“So I always thought that if he ever proposed, I would know, because he’d act weird and jittery.

“But I had no idea, and he told me later that it was because he was so sure he wanted to do this that he didn’t need to ask anyone else’s advice. He’s so indecisive about everything he ever does, but with this he didn’t even have to think about it – he knew exactly what he was doing.”

Wedding plans have been on pause to allow Siân to focus on work for a while – the stint on This Morning is giving rise to other opportunities (“This feels like a work year for me and I’ve got to get my head down and crack on.”) and there is little time for anything else.

But amid the joy, there has also been personal heartache to contend with.

Siân’s dad Ian was already fighting leukaemia when he contracted Covid during the pandemic, which left him too ill for chemotherapy and saw his weight fall to just above 6st.

He also battled sepsis and pneumonia, and the family feared the worst.

“My dad is a bit of a miracle, but I’m very much ‘glass half full’ and I get that from my mum, who is the most positive woman on the planet,” says Siân.

“Dad couldn’t even pick up a cup of tea, and part of me thought: ‘How on earth can he come back from this?’ It was so hard, because it was a time when you weren’t supposed to hug people in hospital.

“One day, I found him sat up in bed looking terrified and confused, not knowing where he was. He saw me come through the door and said: ‘Siân…’ and I just jumped on to the bed and grabbed him in this huge hug and, oh my god, he knew.

“It was such a moment and I genuinely believe that was a turning point for him. He just needed a hug and to know he hadn’t been forgotten.”

Dad’s battle

After several weeks in hospital, Ian defied the odds to return home and has proved the doctors who said he’d never walk again, wrong.

Siân’s mum Helen, 61, retired from her job as a nursery teacher to care for him – Ian, 84, has since been diagnosed with dementia and has no short-term memory, but Siân remains positive.

“My dad won’t ever be the man he was, but I’m sort of accepting the new version. With Alzheimer’s or dementia, you can get caught up trying to ‘fix’ it when it’s a disease that only gets worse.

“Embrace the person you still have and be grateful that they’re alive, take the small wins – those moments when you get a glimpse of the old them or you have a conversation that flows for a bit.

“Some days he’ll ask me the same thing 10 times, and other days he’s fantastic. It’s day by day and we don’t look too far ahead, because my dad lives in the present.”

Siân’s dad Ian was already fighting leukaemia when he contracted Covid during the pandemicCredit: Instagram/Sian Welby

Jake proposed during a boat trip on holiday in Greece last summer, taking Siân completely by surpriseCredit: Instagram/Sian Welby

Siân doesn’t look too far ahead professionally, either. Her plans for the rest of the year are very simple – doing more of the same.

“Sometimes you have a feeling about a year ahead, and there was something about this one. And to start it with the biggest job of my career, a one in a million shot, was mind-blowing for me.

“I’ve had a taste of something incredible and I want to keep going. I’m so lucky that I get to wake up every day and do a crazy job that I love.

“I’m happy for all the opportunities coming my way – it’s just down to being patient and believing.” 

•  Listen to Capital Breakfast with Siân, Roman and Chris, weekdays, 6–10am, Global Player.